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STUART 


GEORGE R. 
























































































































THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 

AND OTHER SERMONS. 

NEW AND OLD 







The Snare of the 
Fowler 

And Other Sermons 
New and Old 

GEORGE R. STUART 


BEING A REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION OF 
‘‘SERMONS BY GEORGE R. STUART*’ 


COKESBURY PRESS 

NASHVILLE, TENN. 

1924 





•£>/.<? 1^3 

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Copyright, 1924 
By Lamar & Barton 


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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

JUN ~6 *24 

©C1A792728 

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CONTENTS 

Page 

Biographical Sketch. 7 

The Snare of the Fowler. 23 

Is This a Christian Nation?. 43 

The Law and Its Effect upon Character. 65 

The Christian Home. 81 

The Power of a Virtuous Woman ... 105 

The World’s Bid for a Man. 133 

The Phases of a Great Man’s Life. 157 

Love Your Enemies. 177 

Temperance . 201 


( 5 ) 






























BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

EORGE R. STUART was born at Talbott 
Station, Tenn., December 14, 1857. He is 



next to the youngest of the five children of Cas¬ 
well Cobb Stuart and Maria M. Stuart. He had three 
brothers older than himself and one sister younger. 
Talbott Station is a small village on the Southern 
Railway, a short distance north of Knoxville. At 
the time George Stuart was born the village consisted 
of only three or four dwellings, one store, and the 
depot. The two leading houses in the village were 
owned and occupied by his father and step-grand- 
father. His step-grandfather. Col. John Talbott, for 
whom the station was named, was the leading farmer 
in the vicinity and owned much of the land surround¬ 
ing the station. His father was the only merchant. 

At the time of the opening of the Civil War, George 
Stuart was four years old. His father was a prosper¬ 
ous merchant and slaveholder, with large property 
and every comfort of life. At the close of the war the 
slaves were set free, the store was destroyed, and the 
Stuart family reduced to poverty. The family moved 
to a rented farm a few miles in the country from Tal¬ 
bott StatiQn. The father and the older boys, with a 
pair of mules and a yoke of oxen, began farming under 
great difficulties. At this point in early life the first 
deep shadow came upon the life of George Stuart, 
when his father, discouraged by the loss of everything 
and broken in spirit, took to strong drink. The ten 
years that followed were spent under the dark shadow 
of fearful dissipation. Three years were spent on this 


( 7 ) 


8 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


farm, and the family, reduced by the dissipation of 
the father, moved to Hawkins County, Tenn., where 
they lived for two years on a rented farm on Big 
Creek. The constant dissipation of the father caused 
the family to move often. They next moved to a 
farm near Rogersville, Tenn., where they spent a few 
years under the same dark cloud of strong drink and 
hard circumstances. 

The next move was made to a farm near New 
Market, Tenn. The move was made in wagons. The 
boys walked and drove a few head of hogs and two 
cows. The sorrow and hardships that came to the 
family during these years of dissipation of the father 
would make a sad story. 

At the age of twelve years George Stuart hired out 
to the neighbors for meager wages to buy his clothing. 
In 1871, while the family lived on the farm near New 
Market, a great revival meeting was conducted in a 
little Quaker village known as Friend Station, one 
mile from the farm on which the Stuart family lived. 
The mother and the children attended this meeting. 
The father rarely ever attended religious meetings of 
any kind; but owing to the great interest in this meet¬ 
ing, which brought together the entire country round 
about, the father of the family was induced by moth¬ 
er and children to accompany them to a night service. 
It was on this night that George Stuart was led to the 
altar by one of his companions and was brightly con¬ 
verted. Rising from the altar, he sought his gray¬ 
haired father, seated on almost the rear seat in the 
church; he threw his arms around his neck and begged 
him to become a Christian. His father replied to his 
entreaties in a voice that could be distinctly heard by 


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 


9 


all near him: “ My boy, you have started right. Your 
gray-haired father will not be a stumblingblock in 
your way. Go on; I will try to follow.” During this 
great meeting every member of the Stuart family was 
converted, except the mother, who had been a Chris¬ 
tian from her girlhood. A few Sabbaths after the 
close of the meeting the entire family joined the Pres¬ 
byterian Church. On account of the high regard of 
the father for Rev. Joseph H. Martin, pastor of the 
Presbyterian Church at Mossy Creek, Tenn., the 
family joined the church at that place. When the 
family returned to their home, George proposed to 
his father to erect a family altar. The father, who 
was a timid man, said that he could not conduct 
family worship himself, but would be glad to have 
George do so. George then insisted on his older 
brothers, and finally on his mother, but all declined 
to take up the family altar. Finally the mother said 
to the lad of fourteen: “ If you will read a chapter and 
lead a prayer to-night, I will try it to-morrow night.” 
And so the family altar was established. The father 
became more interested than any one in the family 
altar and would always arrange the Bible and the 
hymn book, and the candle upon the little stand at 
night, and call the family together for family prayer, 
which was led uniformly by George Stuart. 

George communicated to his father and mother 
that he felt called to preach and desired to prepare 
himself for the ministry. The long dissipation of the 
father, following the destruction of the Civil War, had 
reduced the family to absolute poverty. George 
Stuart had an uncle living at Rogersville, Tenn., who 
had only one child, a boy of four or five years of age. 


10 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


He proposed to board and clothe George if he would 
do the work about the house mornings and evenings, 
and give him the opportunity to enter school at 
Rogersville. Here he attended school two years, 
working mornings and evenings for his board and 
clothing. About this time the famous Ragan High 
School at Morristown, conducted by A. W. Wilson, 
was at the height of its successful career. George de¬ 
sired to attend this school and arranged with one of 
his older brothers to go to Morristown, rent a room, 
have supplies sent from home, do their own cooking, 
and enter this school. The arrangement was made. 
A country boy, John B. Holloway, who is now a 
prominent lawyer, joined them, furnished his share 
of the supplies, and took his turn at cooking. The 
Stuart boys got the job of sweeping out the school¬ 
rooms and making fires for their tuition. They took 
also extra jobs of cutting wood mornings and even¬ 
ings for two or three families near the room occupied 
by them, thus making money for their books and 
other incidental expenses. 

Rev. T. P. Summers, of Morristown, became inter¬ 
ested in George Stuart and offered to take him to his 
home and give him his board for his work mornings 
and evenings. He continued his job sweeping out the 
schoolrooms and making fires for tuition, and thus the 
foundation for his education was laid. During one 
summer season he hired out to a neighboring farmer. 
During another he hired to a man who was running 
a public thrashing machine, going from farm to farm 
thrashing wheat. The third year of his school life at 
Morristown his father visited him and secured a job 
as clerk in the store of Brown & Wells, sold out their 


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 


11 


little supply of farm implements and stock, and 
moved the family into a little cottage at Morristown. 
The older boys had all left home to work for them¬ 
selves. During that year, 1875, the father died, and 
George was forced to give up school in his eighteenth 
year and go to work to take care of his mother and 
sister. His next older brother came home to assist in 
this work, but took down with typhoid fever and died 
that same year. His two older brothers had jobs, one 
in Virginia and one in South Carolina, and continued 
to work for themselves. George gave up his school 
work, secured a position as school-teacher at a little 
country place near Warrensburg, Greene County, 
Tenn. He took his mother and sister with him, se¬ 
cured board for the three at a country home, and be¬ 
gan his life as a school-teacher. He taught school 
during the fall and winter, and acted as colporteur 
for the American Bible Society during the summer. 
After spending a year in school work here, the citizens 
of Parrottsville, Tenn., a little town some seven or 
eight miles from Warrensburg, in the adjoining 
county of Cocke, employed George Stuart to take 
charge of their school. It was while in charge of this 
school that he decided to remove his membership 
from the Presbyterian Church to the Methodist 
Church and secure license to preach from that 
Church, which he did in his twentieth year. He 
taught a few years at Parrottsville, during which 
time he built the school up to one hundred and sixty 
pupils, with seventy-five boarders from sections 
round about. His ambition, however, was for fuller 
preparation for his work. He wrote to Dr. David 
Sullins, who was then President of Emory and Henry 


12 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


College in Virginia, to know if there was any way by 
which a young man could work his way through Emory 
and Henry College. Dr. Sullins dictated a long 
letter to his oldest daughter and sent it to George 
Stuart, encouraging him in his efforts and pointing 
out one or two ways by which he could work his way 
through Emory and Henry College. He proposed to 
give him ten dollars apiece for every young man he 
would bring with him to Emory and Henry College. 
At the opening of the fall term, 1880, George Stuart 
turned up at Emory and Henry accompanied by ten 
young men. He had borrowed from his presiding 
elder, L. L. H. Carlock, fifty dollars, and this, with 
the sum to be paid for the ten young men he secured, 
paid for his first year's expenses at Emory and Henry 
College. The second year he secured a tutorship, and 
this, with the students that he secured during the 
summer vacation, paid his expenses the second year 
and made it possible for him to graduate. 

During his school days he met and fell in love with 
the young lady who, under her father's dictation, 
wrote the long encouraging letter that put him in 
Emory and Henry College, and they were married in 
the old college chapel at Emory and Henry College on 
the 6th of September following his graduation. Dur¬ 
ing his stay at Emory and Henry College he won the 
debaters' medal, the Robertson oratorical medal, the 
medal for the best English composition, and the 
Reader's medal. He tied for first honor of the class, 
but drew for it and lost. It was said of him while 
there that he conducted a tutorship, an editorship, 
and a courtship—made a success of the paper, mar¬ 
ried the girl, and took all the gold medals. 


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 


13 


After his marriage he took his young wife and went 
back to the mountains of Tennessee, to his old school 
at Parrottsville, and taught one year; then joined the 
Holston Conference and was stationed at Cleveland, 
Tenn., in 1884. That was the centenary year of 
Methodism. Having spent much of his life as a 
school-teacher, he saw the great necessity of a good 
school in Bradley County. He took advantage of the 
proposition of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South, to raise a special Centenary Fund, and en¬ 
tered the field to raise funds to build a monument in 
the form of Centenary Female College. In this enter¬ 
prise his success was marvelous, and soon one of the 
largest colleges for girls in the South was built and 
equipped and entered upon its work. He became a 
teacher in this school. About that time Rev. Sam 
Jones was coming into the public notice as a great 
evangelist. He sent his daughters to Centenary Col¬ 
lege and in this way he and George Stuart became 
personal friends. He invited George Stuart to at¬ 
tend, during the summer vacation of his school work, 
a great tent meeting in Jackson, Miss. This was one 
of Mr. Jones's wonderful meetings. Thousands of 
people attended, many coming from forty and fifty 
miles away. During this great meeting Mr. Jones 
took a severe cold and became so hoarse that he was 
unable to speak so that he could be heard by the 
audience. He called on George Stuart to take his 
place. At the close of the sermon he laid his hand on 
Stuart's shoulder and said: “I have been looking all 
over the United States for a man who could do what 
you have done to-day—take my place and hold my 
audience." Mr. Jones arranged with Mr. Stuart to 


14 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


alternate with him in preaching in this meeting. He 
then arranged with him to go with him to his next 
point at Wesson, Miss., where they used a great 
building put up for cotton mills, with seating capacity 
of six thousand. The building was crowded day and 
night and Jones and Stuart alternated in preaching 
to the great crowds for ten days. The next meeting 
was at Trenton, Tenn. Mr. Jones arranged for Mr. 
Stuart to assist him in this meeting also. At the close 
of this meeting Mr. Jones said: “I have been making 
an experiment. It has proven more than satisfactory. 
I want to arrange with you to be my companion in 
the work during the rest of our lives.” This compact 
was made and they continued together as coworkers, 
holding meetings together in great auditoriums all 
over America, from Boston to the West and from 
the Lakes to the Gulf, with the exception of one year. 
That year (1890-91) George Stuart spent as pastor of 
the Centenary Methodist Church, Chattanooga, 
Tenn. During a great tabernacle meeting which was 
being held by Jones and Stuart at Wilmington, N. C., 
the following telegram came to George Stuart from 
Bishop Keener: “1 want you for an important sta¬ 
tion. Come to the seat of Conference, Bristol, Tenn., 
at once.” Jones and Stuart were speaking daily to 
five or six thousand people in a great temporary tab¬ 
ernacle built for the meeting. Stuart read the tele¬ 
gram to Jones, and his characteristic reply was: 
“ George, are you going to take your hand off of the 
throttle of the locomotive engine to roll a wheelbar¬ 
row? ” Stuart replied:“Iama member of the Meth¬ 
odist Church. I am a member of the Holston Con¬ 
ference. I agreed to be subject to the laws of my 


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 


15 


Church. Bishop Keener is in authority. There is 
nothing left for me but to obey or rebel. I shall take 
the night train for Bristol.” He then walked into his 
private room, laid the telegram down on the bed, 
knelt down before it, and prayed in substance this 
prayer: “O Lord, I have surrendered to Thee com¬ 
pletely and entirely my life. If I know my own heart, 
I desire to go where You want me to go and to do 
what You want me to do. Do not suffer me by a 
changing, vacillating life to weaken or destroy my 
life's work. If You want me to devote my time as a 
soulwinner in the evangelistic work, let me have the 
authority from Thee. If You want me to give up this 
work and devote my life to the pastorate, speak so 
that I may understand. Leave me notin doubt as to my 
life work." For an hour he continued in this prayer. 
Mr. Jones tapped on the door and said: “The hour 
has come for the afternoon service. Will you preach 
this afternoon?" Stuart replied: “Yes—this will be 
my last sermon." He walked to the great tabernacle 
breathing the prayer, “Speak to Thy servant, Lord, 
that I may know Thy will in this crisis of my life." 
He walked up on the platform, faced five thousand 
people, took his text, and began to preach. Through¬ 
out the whole sermon there was unusual unction and 
power. People sobbed aloud. “ Amen " and “ Halle¬ 
lujah " were heard. In the closing moments of the ser¬ 
mon there came one of the most marvelous demon¬ 
strations of the Holy Spirit ever witnessed in their 
great meetings. The pastors of the city were on the 
platform. Dr. Beaman and Dr. Creasy were the 
pastors of the two leading Methodist Churches of the 
city. When this wonderful demonstration of power 


16 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


came upon the speaker, these two preachers jumped 
to their feet at the same moment and both of them 
cried “Hallelujah” at the very top of their voices. 
At the same time twenty-five or thirty people all over 
the audience leaped to their feet and began to cry 
aloud and shout. The two preachers ran across the 
platform, fell into each other's arms, the people be¬ 
gan to shout, embrace each other, and shake 
hands all over the great audience. At that moment 
the most marvelous divine touch came upon George 
Stuart and he was powerless to speak for a minute. 
Under this great emotion of the speaker and audience, 
the sermon came to a close. The penitents were 
called and a marvelous spectacle followed—old and 
young, large and small crowded to the front and fell 
upon their knees in prayer. It was a service that no 
one who witnessed it can ever forget. When Mr. 
Jones and Mr. Stuart returned to their rooms at the 
hotel, Mr. Stuart said: “Well, my brother, my life 
work is settled. God has spoken; let men be silent. I 
shall tell the Bishop my experience. I shall continue 
my work as an evangelist; but I must obey orders, 
be loyal to my Church, and report to the Conference, 
as directed by the Bishop.” Mr. Stuart reported to 
Conference and was entertained at the same house 
where the Bishop was entertained. Dr. David Sullins, 
his father-in-law, was also entertained at this home, 
it being the home of Milton Devault, a relative of the 
family. Stuart telegraphed for his wife, and in closed 
room told her and Dr. Sullins of his wonderful expe¬ 
rience at Wilmington. Both agreed with him that he 
should continue his evangelistic work. Dr. Sullins 
was asked to see the Bishop. Stuart sought imme- 


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 


17 


diately an interview with his presiding elder and his 
pastor, told them his experience, and asked that they 
speak to the Bishop. At this important time much 
warfare was being made upon the evangelists. The 
reply of the Bishop to all who consulted him was: “I 
love George Stuart, and I shall treat him exactly as I 
should treat one of my own boys. I need him as pas¬ 
tor and must have him.” When the appointments 
were read, the last night of the Conference, George 
Stuart was read out to Centenary Church, Chatta¬ 
nooga, at that time the largest and most influential 
church in the Conference. He was sitting near 
his wife, and when the appointment was read he 
turned to her and said: “God will work it out right 
some way. I cannot afford to rebel against the au¬ 
thority of my Church. ,, He accepted the appoint¬ 
ment, went to Chattanooga in the fall of 1890, and 
had one of the most wonderful years that a pastor 
ever had in the Holston Conference. Almost every 
Sabbath hundreds of people were turned from the 
doors of his church, unable to get in. All the while, 
however, he felt impressed that his work was in the 
evangelistic field. During that year he built a great 
tabernacle at Chattanooga, and had Sam Jones come 
and hold one of the most wonderful meetings of his 
life. At this meeting nine hundred and sixty men 
came forward at a single service and gave their hands 
for prayer. 

During that year Mr. Jones and Mr. Stuart held a 
great meeting together at Little Rock, Ark., Mr. 
Stuart having obtained leave of absence from his 
Board of Stewards to join Mr. Jones in the meeting. 
At the close of the year the Board of Stewards sent a 
2 


18 THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 

y ' I 

petition, signed by every member, begging Mr, 
Stuart to continue as their pastor, offering to increase 
his salary, and agreeing to do anything he might re* 
quest possible to be done to continue him as their 
pastor. The reply of Mr. Stuart was: "It is the 
voice of God and not man that I am heeding. God 
has spoken. My life work is that of an evangelist.” 

In 1891 the Annual Conference met in the church 
of which George Stuart was pastor, Bishop Galloway 
presiding. George Stuart appeared before his Con¬ 
ference and asked for a location, telling them that he 
felt the call of God to the evangelistic work. The 
Conference by vote granted him a location. On the 
last night of the Conference, Bishop Galloway, repre¬ 
senting the city of Chattanooga, presented him a 
handsome gold watch, the gift of the business men of 
Chattanooga as a token of their appreciation of his 
valuable services. 

Mr. Stuart moved back to Cleveland, Tenn., and 
he and Mr. Jones entered upon their former relations 
and pursued their evangelistic work. 

Mr. Jones’s death, in October, 1906, ended the 
association of these two men, who were considered 
complements to each other. They were much alike 
in the manner of presenting truth, yet were so differ¬ 
ent as to render each a distinct type. The death of 
Sam Jones was one of the saddest blows that ever 
came to the life of George Stuart. 

Mr. Stuart continued his work in three special 
fields. During the severe winter months he devoted 
his time to the Prohibition platform, answering calls 
here and there throughout the country, taking part in 
many local option fights in various parts of the 


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 


19 


country, and answering the various calls of the Anti- 
Saloon League in special services. During the spring 
and fall he continued his evangelistic work. During 
the months of July and August he filled a round of 
engagements on the Chautauqua platform, delivering 
moral and temperance lectures. 

In 1910 Mr. Stuart had a severe attack of facial 
neuralgia which greatly reduced his strength and 
depleted his nerves. He found himself unable to 
continue the strain of the intense day and night work 
of the evangelist and decided to enter the regular 
pastorate. In the fall of 1912 he was appointed pas¬ 
tor of Church Street Methodist Church in Knoxville, 
Tenn. Here he remained four years. During these 
years large crowds were turned from the doors of the 
church at every service. The membership increased 
largely and all departments of Church activity were 
enlarged. At the end of the four years petitions were 
sent in by the various organizations of the city asking 
for the continuance of his pastorate, but the time 
limit which was then in force automatically termi¬ 
nated his pastorate. 

He was transferred in the fall of 1916 to the First 
Methodist Church, in the city of Birmingham, Ala., 
where he has for eight years preached to the largest 
audiences that have ever assembled constantly in the 
city of Birmingham for religious worship. The 
membership of the Church and of the various Church 
organizations has been practically doubled during his 
pastorate. 




THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 



















































































































































































































































































THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


**Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler ” 
(Psalm xci. 3.) 

i i URELY he [that is God] shall deliver thee [that 

1 ^ is you, my brother] from the snare of the fowler 
[that is the trap of the devil].” I am so glad 
that the gospel has been so thoroughly humanized. 
It comes so close to me, so close to you. I am so glad 
that Christ came in human flesh, walked on human 
feet, did kind deeds with human hands, and spake his 
wonderful words with human tongue. I am glad he 
walked and talked and ate and slept with humanity. 
But Christ came no closer to the world than does this 
old Bible. In this book we have the truths of the 
gospel illustrated by all conditions of human life, 
from the tent to the palace; in every walk of life, from 
the shepherd boy to the king; every object on which 
we look has been taken by the blessed book to illus¬ 
trate some truth. 

“There is a lesson in each flower, 

A story in each stream and bower; 

On every herb on which we tread 
Are written words which rightly read 
Will lead us from earth’s fragrant sod 
And up to holiness in God.” 

The author of my text is David, the ruddy-cheeked 
son of Jesse, and a natural-born poet. I read the 
whole book of Psalms through once to see what God 

( 23 ) 


24 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


was to David. I was charmed by his wonderful fig¬ 
ures. Hear him talk of his God. 

‘‘The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my 
deliverer, . . . my shield, and the horn of my sal¬ 
vation, and my high tower.” “ The Lord is my stay.” 
“ The Lord is my light, and the Lord is my strength.” 
“He shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his 
tabernacle shall he hide me, he shall set me up upon 
a rock.” “When my father and my mother forsake 
me, then the Lord will take me up.” “The Lord is 
my shield.” “Thou art my fortress.” “Thou art my 
hiding place.” “ For God is my defense and refuge in 
the day of my trouble.” “Thou hast been a shelter 
for me, and a strong tower from the enemy. I will 
trust in the covert of thy wings.” “Be thou my 
strong habitation.” “The Lord is my shepherd.” 
“ Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the 
shadow of thy wing.” “How say ye to my soul, 
Flee as a bird to your mountain?” How wonderful 
are these pictures! 

Again I have read to see what David thought of 
the devil, and he saw him through the same poetic 
eye. There is no more graphic picture of the devil 
anywhere than the one in my text. David represents 
him as a bird-catcher, and represents you and me as 
the unwary, unthinking bird caught by the snare of 
the fowler. I have selected this familiar figure to¬ 
night that I might get close to you. When my 
Master spake to the people he gathered from the 
scenes about him the figures that would bring him 
closest to his audience. When he talked to the shep¬ 
herds, he said: “I am the good shepherd, and my 
sheep know my voice.” And every time a shepherd 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


25 


spoke to a sheep after that, the sheep, responding to 
the shepherd's voice, preached the Master's sermon. 
When he spake to the fisherman, he said: “The king¬ 
dom of heaven is like unto a net that was cast into 
the sea, and gathered of every kind; which, when it 
was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and 
gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad 
away." As the fishermen sat in little groups, by the 
sea, sorting their fishes, the fish preached the Mas¬ 
ter's sermon. When he talked to the farmer, he said: 
“Behold, a sower went forth to sow; and when he 
sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls 
came and devoured them up: some fell upon stony 
places; . . . and some fell among thorns; . . . 
and others fell into good ground." As the farmer 
went forth sowing his seed, as it bounced from the 
hard-beaten path, or rattled among the thistles, it 
preached the Master's sermon. When he spake to the 
woman of busy household cares, he said: “A little 
leaven leaveneth the whole lump." And the pone of 
bread in each woman's hand preached the Master's 
sermon. He said, “Ye are the light of the world," 
and every rising sun preached the Master's sermon. 
He said, “Ye are a candle," and every taper preached. 
He said, “Ye are the salt," and every crystal of salt 
preached the Master's sermon. The Master touched 
the household and everyday scenes of life, and made 
them pregnant with his gospel. And to-night, follow¬ 
ing the example of my Master, I take from this 
blessed book a little picture, and I get close to you. 
I bring a few simple methods by which the bird- 
catcher catches birds. And if you will give me your 
attention, you will be surprised to see how much like 


26 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


a bird you have been, and how much like a bird- 
catcher the devil has been. 

The first method I take is that of the decoy. Did 
you ever lie under the covert of a river bank with a 
wooden duck, exactly resembling, in paint, in shape, 
in color, a living duck, resting upon the river? It 
moves as a duck moves, looking like a duck looks, act¬ 
ing as a duck acts. Did you never hear the whistle 
of the wild ducks' wings in the air, and see them cir¬ 
cle and circle about the wooden duck? At last, as¬ 
suring themselves that all is safe, they alight with a 
splutter around the wooden duck; and did you never 
hear the bang! bang! of the guns, and see the poor 
decoyed ducks bleeding and floundering upon the 
bosom of the water? I shall never forget my first 
duck hunt. I shall never forget the first time I ever 
saw a decoy, how like a duck it looked. It had a 
duck's wing; it had a duck's head; it had a duck's 
color, and even the glass eye made the decoy perfect. 
I never used a more effective instrument than a decoy 
for catching game. Where is the devil's decoy, and 
how is he like a bird-catcher? The devil's decoy is 
the nominal Church member with his ecclesiastical 
paint on, in outward appearance the very image of a 
Christian, and spiritually as dead as the old wooden 
duck. Never did the devil have a more effective 
agency than the nominal member of the Church. I 
noticed that our decoy duck was completely under 
our control. We could tie it out on the pond; tie it 
out on the lake; tie it out on the river; tie it out on the 
swamp; and so of the devil's decoys, they are under 
his power. He sets them out in the theater; stands 
them out on the ballroom floor; sets them down 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


27 


at the card table; stands them up by the saloon 
counter. They are in his power. I notice that our de¬ 
coy was not afraid of anything. The voice of the 
hunter gave no alarm; while every living duck flut¬ 
tered and flew the decoy duck swam placidly upon the 
bosom of the water, and seemed to say: “I am safe 
everywhere. Nothing hurts me.” There is no surer 
test of the decoy than this. And there is no surer test 
of the devil's decoy than to hear one say: “The 
dance does not hurt me.” “The theater does not 
hurt me.” “The card table does not hurt me.” “A 
drink now and then does not hurt me.” The only 
reason that they do not hurt you is that you are dead. 
And the devil simply uses your church membership, 
your perfunctory performances of Christian duty, 
and your outward likeness to the Christian, as a 
snare by which he may trap and bring to death un¬ 
thinking Christians. If the record of the decoy duck 
in the hands of the hunter could be kept, and all the 
ducks destroyed through its agency piled around on 
some hunter's day, what an awful picture of distress 
there would be, of broken wing and broken leg, 
bleeding head, ruined eye, and lost plumage. When, 
in the great judgment of God, the devil's decoys are 
gathered around them, ah, the gamblers, the drunk¬ 
ards, the licentious. These gamblers, my friend, were 
made at your gaming table; these debauched and 
ruined characters, my friend, were made in your 
dance halls; these licentious characters, all blackened 
with sin, were made as they sat with you in the dress 
circle, in the private boxes, or in the peanut gallery of 
the theater. These drunkards were made with wine 
from your table, punch from your beautiful bowl, and 


28 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


claret from your sparkling glasses. O, the record of 
the devil's decoys! Christ's greatest enemies were 
his professed friends who were untrue. And some of 
these friends are loudest in their professions. They 
wear the biggest crosses on their person; they wear the 
longest faces at worship; they are often prominent in 
church societies, and sometimes head the list in 
benevolent giving. It is strange that Judas furnishes 
the only recorded example who kissed his Lord in 
public, and he was the only example who paraded his 
love for the poor, by his desire to take even the offer¬ 
ings of the Master to increase the funds for the poor. 
To-day there is not a species of sin whose counterpart 
is not in the church somewhere, I mean among church 
members. Too often our church societies, organized 
to help the poor and comfort the sick and do other 
eleemosynary work in the name of Christ, are used 
by the devil to introduce our young people to the 
most corrupt institutions. Young as I am in the 
Christian life, I have known church societies to have 
a dance, whose fees were to go into a church building. 
I have known a church to take the gates of a baseball 
park, the receipts of the game to be applied to the 
church building. I have known a church to raffle a 
silk quilt to procure funds for the Master's use. I 
have known the church to solicit the kiss from her 
maidens' lips to augment the treasury of the church. 
I have known the church to defraud the public by 
so-called oyster soup, ice cream, and other articles 
offered for sale, which were but abominable cheats 
and frauds. Let us down with all this business, and 
when the Church of our Christ needs money, let us 
give like loving children. How many there are, like 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


29 


Judas of old, who would take the sweet incense from 
off the very person of Christ and sell it for funds for 
the church treasury. The church treasury is bigger 
than Christ. 

Let us take a picture. Here is a fourth-class saloon 
on a back street. In the back end of this saloon is a 
black, dirty pine table. On this pine table is a 
greasy deck of cards and a bottle of liquor, and a 
little pile of coin. Around this table sit four old 
gamblers who drink from the bottle, and gamble with 
the cards for the little pile of silver. 

Take another scene: an elegant so-called Christian 
home; all the members of the family have their names 
upon the church record. There are a series of beau¬ 
tiful carved oak tables. On each table lies a beautiful 
deck of silk cards, and around each table are gathered 
an elegantly dressed company of people, three- 
fourths of whom are Church members, some of them, 
possibly, officials in the Church. On the center table 
stands a beautiful cut-glass vase, and they are play¬ 
ing progressive euchre for the vase. 

Take these two pictures, and look at them a mo¬ 
ment. In the sight of God and the laws of our land 
the one is as much gambling as the other; both crowds 
should be arrested and brought before the courts, just 
like a nigger is arrested and brought before the courts 
for shooting craps. There was, a short time ago, on 
the bench in the city of Chattanooga, a judge who 
had the courage to so instruct his grand jury. As I 
look upon these two pictures, with my precious boy 
standing by my side, I speak the truth when I say 
I fear the latter more than I fear the former. The 
former will never get my boy, nor will it ever get any 


30 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


ambitious boy or any of our boys from any of our 
better circles of life. That old saloon, that old table, 
that old greasy deck of cards, those old gamblers, have 
nothing in them to captivate the boy or pull him from 
the paths of virtue. 

They would all have a tendency to drive him from 
the place of vice. But that elegant home, those beau¬ 
tiful tables, those silk cards, and that elegant group 
of polite society, the brilliant lights and the delight¬ 
ful music, will capture my boy and capture your boy. 
Our boys matriculate in the latter and graduate in 
the former. 

Take another picture. There is a big gilded saloon 
down on Main Street. The music is going, the lights 
are bright, the glasses are rattling, and the laugh 
from the dissipating throng is ringing. Above the 
doors are the words, “ Palace Saloon/’ Take an¬ 
other picture. It is a magnificent building, large par¬ 
lors, easy chairs, reading tables, writing tables, peri¬ 
odicals, and libraries. Young men, middle-aged men, 
and old men are there. Church members, church 
officials are there. It is a social club. On one floor is 
a dance hall, on another is the library and reading 
room; on another floor are gaming rooms; on another 
is a handsome buffet where meats and drinks are 
served. This building is a social club. It could not 
have been built without Church members; it cannot 
be maintained without them. But standing again, 
with my boy beside me, I fear the latter more than 
I fear the former. My boy, your boy, will not go into 
the saloon, but he will follow the church man into the 
social club; he will matriculate in the club and gradu¬ 
ate in the saloon. 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


31 


Take another picture. It is a public hall in the 
city; brilliantly illuminated; the floors are waxed; the 
orchestra has been employed, and the dance starts at 
9:30. It is a promiscuous ball. Whisky is smelt upon 
the breath of every other man, and even the women 
have had their wine. Immodest dress, immodest 
positions, unholy passions. This is the public ball. 

Again. The building is a beautiful residence on 
Capitol Avenue. The heads of the family are. mem¬ 
bers of the Church. Cards have been issued for the 
reception. Supper is over, the dining room is cleared, 
the music starts at 10 o’clock, and the dance begins. 
It is a select party, a private dance, but it is a dance. 
Church members are dancing. Church officials are 
looking on, but it is a dance. I stand again, with my 
precious daughter standing by my side, and say; 
“I fear the former less than I fear the latter.” Our 
daughters matriculate in our private dance and grad¬ 
uate in our public balls. And our public balls are but 
scenes of immodesty and passion. Let us put all 
these worldly amusements together, and I make one 
statement in reference to them all: “They either do 
good or harm. They promote Christianity or world¬ 
liness; they gather with Christ or they scatter abroad; 
they are for Christ or against Christ.” 

Take not the advice of the devil’s decoys. Be not 
drawn into places of death by their example. In all 
these matters go to the Bible for truth and go to God 
in prayer. “Surely he shall deliver thee from the 
snare of the fowler.” 

I take another method of the fowler. Standing on 
board of the deck of a steamer, as we left the shore, 
I saw a covey of long-winged, graceful gulls following 


82 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


in the wake of the vessel, picking up and feeding upon 
such things as were thrown from the vessel. A 
gentleman, standing by, tied a bait to a long string 
and a little stick as a float, threw it around his head 
a few times, then dashed it out into the water and 
tied the end of the string to a post of the vessel. In 
a little while a long-winged, graceful gull flew down 
and swallowed the bait. Lifting himself on his wing, 
again he started away, but the cord soon held him 
fast. The man pulled it in, and we saw the gull break 
its wings and dishevel his feathers against the vessel. 
At last he fell out on the restless waves, an easy prey 
for anything. I said: “Ah, I see where Mr. Webster 
got his word ‘gull.'” What is it to be gulled? You 
think you are going to get something and something 
gets you. How oft have I seen the devil's gull rope, 
how oft I have seen his bait! How oft I have seen the 
unfortunate bird fastened by the cord he could not 
break! I have seen the young man take his first glass. 
I have watched the sparkle of his eye and the flush of 
his cheek. I have heard the music of his laugh. As 
he started off it did seem as if he had found a prize. 
But I have seen him again, with bleared eye and 
bloated face and trembling form, ruined by drink. 
I have had him put his arms around my neck, 
look piteously into my face, and say: “0, George, if I 
could quit; if I could quit.” The wing of his ambi¬ 
tion was broken; the feathers of his pride disheveled. 
He had fallen out on the restless waves of time, an 
easy prey for anything. He had bit at the devil's 
gull rope. 

During my pastorate in the city of Chattanooga a 
young plasterer came to the city. Many a day, with 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


33 


his overalls and trowel, he made his honest dollar, re¬ 
tired at night and slept the sleep of an honest man. 
He fell into bad company and began to play for fun, 
and then for funds. Finding money made at the 
gaming table easier than with the trowel, he said: 
“Good-by, overalls; good-by, trowel; good-by, honest 
toil.” One Sabbath night, having forgotten the 
laws of God and the laws of men, he sat in the upper 
room of a saloon gambling. A dispute arose. His 
opponent leaped to his feet, pulled his gun, and fired 
on the poor plasterer, who fell back dead. I looked 
into his face the next morning; I looked into the gap¬ 
ing wounds, and I said: “Poor fellow, you have bit at 
the devil's gull rope." Be honest, young man, be 
honest. Be sober, young man, be sober. 

In my schoolboy days, in one of our Tennessee 
towns, I formed the acquaintance of a boy who was 
doing the rough work in a dry goods store at a small 
salary. He had come in from an honest country home 
where he had been taught to love God and to do right. 
He was ambitious. As he was packing goods in the 
rear room of the store one day, doing his work honest¬ 
ly and faithfully, he said: “George, I will be a partner 
in this store some day." Our lives separated. Years 
afterwards I went back to that town. As I walked up 
to that store I saw my young friend's name linked 
with the name of the senior merchant. They were 
partners. We renewed our acquaintance. I spent 
the evening at his beautiful home. It was a model 
Christian home. After supper he said: “George, we 
have prayers early, so the little ones may not get 
sleepy before prayers." After family worship we 
went out into his beautiful yard and sat down in the 
3 


34 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


moonlight on a rustic seat, for it was summer, and as 
I looked back at his home I laid my hand on his knee, 
and said: “I am glad to see you in this beautiful 
home. I am glad to find you a partner in that big dry 
goods store.” He laid his hand on mine, a tear glis¬ 
tening in his manly eye, as he said: “Thank God, 
there is not a dirty shilling in that home, and we are 
happy in it.” It takes an honest dollar to build a 
happy home. It takes an honest business to make a 
happy life. The eagle on an honest dollar turns to a 
nightingale, and sings to you in your restful moments. 
The eagle on the dishonest dollar turns to a vulture 
and gnaws at your conscience in your unoccupied mo¬ 
ments. 

Let us take another method. Did you ever set a 
trap? I shall never forget the first trap I ever set. I 
had spent the night with a neighbor boy. We went 
early in the morning and set the trap for partridges. 
When we had adjusted the triggers, my companion 
said: “Wait, George, we must cover up this trap. 
There is not a bird in all the fields fool enough to go 
into the trap unless it is covered.” We gathered 
weeds and stuff to cover all the timbers of the trap, 
and away we ran. At the appointed hour we visited 
our trap. As we reached the top of the hill, looking 
down into the hollow where we had set our trap, my 
companion said excitedly: “It is down! It is down! 
It is down!” If you never saw your trap down, you 
don't know how a boy feels in such a race. When 
we reached the trap and pulled the grass away we 
cried in our mountain vernacular: “It's a pat-ridge! 
It's a pat-ridge! It's a pat-ridge!” Slipping his 
hand under the trap, he pulled out the bird with its 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


35 


broken wing, its scattered feathers, and bleeding 
head. I looked upon the beautiful striped-headed 
bird, and saw the blood on its head, its broken wing, 
its disheveled feathers, and watched it looking nerv¬ 
ously and piteously around, hoping to regain its 
freedom, and my boyish heart felt in mute sympathy 
with the bird. In my heart I said: “I wish its wing 
were unbroken, its head unmarked, its feathers all 
right, and we could turn it loose and hear it buzz in 
the air once more." 

Ah, I have seen that bird since then. I have seen 
the broken wing and the bleeding head. I have seen 
that covered trap. The name was covered. I have 
read: “Parlor Saloon," “Palace Saloon," “Daisy Sa¬ 
loon," and “Shamrock Saloon." The parlor is the 
sweetest room of the home, where we meet and greet 
our friends and loved ones. The daisy is the sweetest 
and most modest flower that blooms in the valley. 
The shamrock is the little three-leafed clover-like 
plant that grows on the Emerald Isle. It is the plant 
that St. Patrick plucked when he introduced Chris¬ 
tianity. He held it up and said: “There are three 
persons in the Godhead—the Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost." The three are one, the same in substance 
and equal in power, and gave the Irish their first 
grip on the Trinity. No harm in the parlor saloon; 
no harm in the daisy saloon; no harm in the 
shamrock saloon. Go in, boys, go in. Look at the 
pictures on the wall. There is a picture of a beautiful 
woman standing in front of her elegant home, pluck¬ 
ing a Marechal Niel rose from the vine that clambers 
about her porch. Here and there are other innocent 
pictures clustered among the sporting pictures. Not 


86 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


a single picture of the drunkard's home, or a drunk¬ 
ard's family, or a drunken tragedy, or a drunkard's 
brawl. How I should like to hang the pictures in the 
saloons of this country! What a group of pictures 
the wreckage of the saloon would make! Why hang 
these pictures of domestic felicity in the saloon? 
When did the saloon ever make a woman smile? It 
has made her weep, from time immemorial. When 
did it ever place her in the yard of a beautiful home? 
It has turned her out homeless. When did it ever 
make her pluck a flower? She has gathered only 
from the thorns. How I should like to uncover these 
saloons! 

During our meeting in the city of Nashville, I said: 
“How I should like to uncover and to see one saloon 
uncovered." A friend of mine came to me, and said: 
“Come to me to-morrow morning, and I will show 
you a saloon uncovered." I went with him to 
the spot where he had displaced the saloon with a 
mission chapel. He said: “There is my lamp; look 
at it." On one side was: “Who hath woe? who hath 
sorrow? who hath redness of eyes?" etc. On an¬ 
other: “Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor 
drink." And so each side was figured with Scriptures 
of warning. We walked in. The little chapel was 
covered with large water-color paintings, drawn life- 
size, upon the plastered wall. The first was a life- 
size picture of Sam Jones. I said: “Why that pic¬ 
ture?" He said: “That is the man that led me to 
Christ." In another picture the women were rolling 
barrels and demijohns out, while the angels were wav¬ 
ing victory. I said: “What is that?" He replied: 
“ That is the picture of the W. C. T. U. women rolling 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 37 

the infernal stuff out of the land, and heaven re¬ 
joicing.” Fight on, good women. Pray on, toil on. 
She who was accused of being the originator of sin 
has been the originator of every great reform move¬ 
ment. Another picture on the wall was that of a 
man, lying sprawling on the floor, with the blood 
gushing from his heart. Above him stood a man with 
a bloody knife in his hand, with a demon's face. I 
said: “ What is that, my friend? ” He replied: “ That 
is a tragedy that occurred in this saloon.” And on 
we went through these awful pictures till we came to 
the last. It was a poor, ragged, forlorn-looking fel¬ 
low with a great serpent coiled around him. I said: 
“What is that?” He replied: “That is the poor 
drunkard in the coils of the awful serpent.” “Ah,” 
said I, “my friend, if every saloon in this country 
should have the real pictures of its work upon its 
walls, our young men would run from them.” If I 
could uncover the saloons of this country, I could de¬ 
prive them of their patronage. If I could go to the 
ballroom, with its gay laughter and music and bril¬ 
liant lights, and show to the girls the hellish passions 
that rage, they would cover their faces in their hands 
and run to their mothers' arms for protection. If I 
could go to the theater and uncover the sins and 
lives of the performers, and show things up like God 
sees them, I could depopulate the theaters of this 
country. The devil covers his traps. Brother, sister, 
if you would be delivered from the traps of the devil, 
keep close to the bleeding side of Christ. “ He is able 
to deliver thee.” 

The last method I take, briefly, is that of the net. 
In Tennessee we have a method of catching birds in 


38 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


nets. The net has a big end and a little end. It is so 
with all the devil's snares. There are long wings to 
the net extending on each side. Birds are driven in 
coveys. Only birds that go in coveys are netted. 
People go in coveys, so to speak. There are crowds 
of young people in this city that belong to the clubs, 
that belong to the dancing circles, and that belong 
to the gaming circles. They go in groups. They have 
a leader. There are groups of young people who hear 
my voice to-night; if we get the leader to become a 
Christian, he could lead the whole group with him; 
but the hardest work of my ministry has been to get 
into these circles—the social club circle, the social 
card circle. Did you ever see a covey of birds going 
toward the net? Birds are caught on a rainy day, a 
drizzly day, and a cloudy day. Many a company of 
young people has been started toward the net on a 
drizzly day. Many a boy has taken his first drink, 
many a one has played his first game of cards on such 
days. I have seen the bird, when he was first touch¬ 
ing the wing of the net, stop for a moment and appar¬ 
ently look up, and I have thought I could hear him 
say: “The ground is still beneath my feet, and the 
sky is still above me. I can run and I can fly.” But 
on he goes until he is in the net, and I see him look 
again. “There is net above me, and net beneath me, 
and net on every side of me; but,” says he, “ I will get 
out farther along.” And on he goes, until he flutters 
and falls in the little end of the net. I have seen a 
young man touching the wings of the net in his first 
drink. I have heard him say: “ The sky is still above 
me, and the ground is still beneath me. I can run and 
I can fly. I will not become a drunkard. I can quit.” 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


39 


I have seen him when the net of habit was all about 
him. I have heard him say: “I will quit. I will get 
out farther on.” I have seen him lying in the meshes 
of the little end of the net, helpless. 

Brother, if the sky is still above you to-night, fly. 
If the ground is still beneath you, run. If you are not 
tied by the habits of drink, by the habit of gaming, 
by lustful habits, in God's name I bid you fly to-night. 
Lift yourself upon the wing of your will and fly to 
God. 


IS THIS A CHRISTIAN NATION? 













IS THIS A CHRISTIAN NATION? 

“Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any 
people.” (Proverbs xiv. 34.) 

“ Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” (Psalm xxxiii. 
12 .) 

R ighteousness is the right adjustment of 

one's life and conduct to the moral law—a 
comformity to law; unrighteousness is a trans¬ 
gression of the law—a want of conformity. Obedi¬ 
ence to the moral law, according to the texts, is the 
condition of national exaltation; a nation rises or 
falls just as it obeys or disobeys the moral law. More 
than a hundred years ago, back in the years when our 
republican government was new on the earth and 
when great men studied government and the laws of 
the rise and fall of government, the Congress of the 
United States reached the conclusion that the highest 
duty of government would be to favor religion among 
the people and a resolution was passed by the Con¬ 
gress of the United States with this remarkable and 
significant preamble; Whereas true religion and 
good morals are necessary to liberty and happiness: 
Resolved that,” etc. The true religion referred to in 
this resolution, of course, meant the Christian reli¬ 
gion. These eminent builders of government reached 
the wise conclusion that the fundamentals of liberty 
and happiness lie in obedience to moral law. Some¬ 
one has reduced the duties of a Christian citizen to 
seven obligations: first, to know about our nation's 

( 43 ) 


44 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


history, its laws and rulers; second, to obey the laws 
and get them obeyed; third, to secure better laws, if 
possible; fourth, to elect good rulers and support 
them; fifth, to rebuke and oppose bad rulers; sixth, 
to influence other citizens for good; seventh, to train 
the young for noble citizenship. Through all these 
the moral element is dominant. 

God hath set the nations in their places, and from 
his first whisperings to Abraham to his final words 
through the prophets and the Christ he hath taught 
the nations the meaning of righteousness and sin, the 
way to exaltation and abasement; and the proverb of 
the text is the succinct statement of God, the final 
affirmative; a nation which obeys the law of God goes 
up and a nation which disobeys his law goes down. 
This proverb is true in the individual elements of a 
nation and in the aggregate. . A man who is clean, 
honest, true, and straight with the law of God re¬ 
ceives the honor and plaudits of his fellow man; a man 
who is wicked, base, and crooked in his life reaps the 
contempt of his fellow man. An individual builds a 
character worthy of exaltation or of contempt. It is 
a distinct blessing to be a citizen of honor or the mem¬ 
ber of a family whose ancestry for generations has 
been righteous. In a larger way a nation builds a 
character as distinct as the character of an individual 
or the character of a family, and both honor and dis¬ 
grace follow under the same law. 

The American nation is as truly a divine product as 
was the Jewish nation, and the same hand that built 
the unique little country of Palestine built the strange 
and wonderful continent on which we live. In ad¬ 
mitting God as the Creator of the heavens and the 


IS THIS A CHRISTIAN NATION? 


45 


earth, he who would take for his fashioning fingers the 
smallest blade of grass or the loftiest mountain range, 
the dewdrop on the flower petal or an ocean in its 
rock-ribbed and coral-bedded cavern, would irrev¬ 
erently profane the Maker and Builder of the 
world. We believe that God actually built America. 
He threw up her mountains, spread out her vales, dug 
the channels for her rivers, imbedded her oceans, 
planted her trees, entwined her vines, and scattered 
her flowers. We believe that our chain of lakes on 
the North and our chain of wonderful harbors stretch¬ 
ing around the Pacific, the Gulf, and the Atlantic 
have a divine purpose. We believe that God hath 
selected our site, builded our home, and set us among 
the nations of the earth with a divine purpose, the 
unfolding of which is becoming more and more ap¬ 
parent as the years go by. The present exaltation of 
the American nation, the power of her voice, the sig¬ 
nificance of her every movement among the nations is 
not a twentieth-century accident. With all of our sins, 
there has been a national spirit of righteousness, 
which has distinctively marked the American nation. 
We stand to-day on an exalted peak among the na¬ 
tions of the earth. 

The American nation from its origin to the present 
time has been distinctively a godly nation. A care¬ 
ful examination of our history will bring out this state¬ 
ment to a forcefulness that will startle. In every on¬ 
ward movement of our nation our discoverers and 
builders have recognized God, the Bible, and the 
Cross. Columbus was a geographical prophet and 
priest of God. In Lisbon he fell in love with a school¬ 
girl, a native of Funchal in the Madeira Island. He 


46 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


followed her there and married her. She was the 
daughter of an old sailor who had rude maps and 
charts. Another old sailor, storm-drifted, found en¬ 
tertainment in this hospitable home, where he died, 
leaving valuable maps and charts with suggestions of 
countries in the West. Christopher Columbus, this 
providential figure in the discovery of America, a 
godly man from youth, providentially inherited these 
maps and charts. Prayerful and trustful, he com¬ 
mitted his ways to God. Interesting and remarkable 
are the historic steps by which he in answer to his 
daily prayers secured his outfit for the voyage. The 
ships secured, he made and added to his equipage a 
significant and characteristic talisman. It was a 
large and conspicuous Cross. This he placed in the 
foremost ship. When land was discovered and he 
with his officers transferred to the small boat to make 
the landing, his only preparation for the exultant 
trip from the large vessel to the landing was to take 
this cross, which he carried in his hand and which, as 
his first act, he planted on this newly discovered land; 
and, falling on his knees and kissing the earth, he 
lifted his face and voice in solemn dedication of the 
country which he had discovered to the God who had 
guided him. When the English colony touched shore 
at Jamestown, the first act was to place the cross and 
kneel before God in a solemn dedication of the conti¬ 
nent which they had discovered to the God who 
created it. When the Plymouth colony landed, they 
planted the cross on the old Plymouth Rock and, 
bowing before it, offered their dedicatory service to 
God. In our early colonization, the first public 
building and the center of every community was the 


IS THIS A CHRISTIAN NATION? 47 

Church of God, and the worship of God was a part of 
all public exercises. When sorrow came, the people 
gathered in the churches and appealed to God, and 
when abundant harvest, victories, and joys came 
they sought the same place for thanksgiving. After 
the victorious shouting, celebrating our national in¬ 
dependence, the first distinctive gathering was in 
the name of God and the first distinctive service was 
of praise to him as the Author of our liberty and the 
God of our nation. When our patriotic heroes met to 
declare our national independence, this masterful 
document called the “Declaration of Independence” 
was begun and ended with the recognition of God, 
appealing to him for the righteousness of their pur¬ 
pose and looking to him for the success of their 
project. Thus this masterpiece of national statement 
was set in a gold frame of reverent and trustful recog¬ 
nition of “Divine Providence.” Readers of history 
will note that when the Convention, which met in 
Philadelphia to frame a constitution upon whose 
justice and liberty the colonies should be organized 
into a nation, came to a standstill, unable to agree, 
Benjamin Franklin, the hoary-headed octogenarian, 
arose and moved that the Convention appeal to the 
God of the nation for help; and the providential 
Washington, the chairman, sanctioning this call, rev¬ 
erently put the motion, which carried, and the de¬ 
vout hearts joined in prayer to the God of nations, 
who with his own finger touched the tangled skein, 
untied the knots, and this strange providential docu¬ 
ment, blessed and steered of God, was given as a 
foundation of our Christian nation. 

When the first president of this godly nation was to 


48 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


be inaugurated, during the hour preceding his inau¬ 
gural every church bell in the capitol rang, every 
church door was open, the people gathered first in the 
house of God and asked his blessings upon the first 
president, and from the churches started the proces¬ 
sion to the inaugural. When Washington took his 
oath, he reverently held the Bible in his arms, pressed 
his lips upon it, turned his face toward heaven, and 
said, “1 swear, so help me God.” 

When the various States were organized under this 
new national union, God's name and God's day and 
God's law were incorporated in every code. In 
every court of justice when an oath is to be taken or 
a deposition given the oath is taken in the name of 
God. When the national and State governments 
were organized, in every case a chaplain, the man of 
God, was elected and every official meeting was 
opened with prayer. God's inspiration and direction 
are invoked in every public legislative act. From 
the beginning of our national government, God's 
name and God's day have been honored. This ob¬ 
servation of the Sabbath, God's day, is as funda¬ 
mental as the Constitution. The closed doors and 
reverential silence of our national buildings, from the 
golden-domed Capitol on the hill and the White House 
among the trees to the humblest building over which 
the national flag floats; the adjournment of the 
Senate, Congress, and Supreme Court, with the 
ceasing of business in all State Capitols, courts, 
and legislatures; the time-honored custom of the 
President to sign no bills, the legislative decision that 
the Supreme Court decide no cases, and that no docu¬ 
ment is legal if executed on the Sabbath—all these 


IS THIS A CHRISTIAN NATION? 


49 


proclaim in silent yet awful impressiveness that this 
nation in its formation and from its foundation rec¬ 
ognizes God in its government. The additional fact 
that our national holidays, the Fourth of July, 
Thanksgiving, and Christmas, acknowledge God in 
our national victory and in all our blessings—civil, 
religious, and material, and celebrating the birth of 
our Saviour—is significant testimony that God is in 
our government and is to be recognized in our na¬ 
tional celebrations. 

When a national circulating medium of commerce 
was to be provided, the coin was designed and the 
inscriptions upon it carefully thought out. It was 
not an accident nor an incident that the brief but 
significant sentence, “In God We Trust/' should ap¬ 
pear on the coin circling above the head of the God¬ 
dess of Liberty. There is also on this coin the eagle, 
our national emblem, which carries in his right claw 
an olive branch, the emblem of peace and good will to 
man, and in his left claw a bunch of arrows, which 
stand second to the olive branch and are used only 
when the olive branch is unavailing. From his beak a 
scroll floats bearing the strange proverb, “E Pluribus 
Unum”—a prophecy that God set this nation apart 
as a distinct nation among the nations of the earth to 
accomplish peace and justice. Who can look upon an 
American coin and read its emblems in the light of 
the twentieth century and not see back of it “a na¬ 
tion whose God is the Lord”? 

Betsy Ross, the tapestry weaver in the city of 
Philadelphia, was not the author of the American 
flag; but the providential Washington thoughtfully 
and prayerfully wrought out its emblems and com- 
4 


50 THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 

mitted to her only the mechanical structure. Its 
background of blue, representing fidelity, he took 
from the skies and sprinkled it with golden stars 
representing the States; the blood of the cross and of 
the heroes was in its crimson bars, and the purity 
that comes from the washing of the blood was in its 
white. There could not be a more befitting banner 
selected for our Christian nation. The “ Star- 
Spangled Banner,” the thrilling air that stirs this na¬ 
tion to its highest endeavors for God and home and 
native land, was inspired while its author watched 
the storming of the fort in the final battle of the great 
struggle; and at the dawning of the morning, seeing 
the enemy ships and army move away in defeat and 
the flag still waving, he acknowledged the God of our 
nation and the preserver of our nation in these won¬ 
derful words: 

“ Blest with victory and peace may the Heaven-rescued land 
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation! 
Then conquer we must when our cause it is just; 

And this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust!’ 

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave \ 
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” 

Presidents, Senators, Congressmen, Governors, 
and all State and National officials assume their 
official responsibilities with the name of God upon 
their trembling lips. In every great crisis of our na¬ 
tion God has called to the White House a man of 
faith and a man of prayer to guide us as Moses 
guided Israel. No one can read the life of George 
Washington and fail to see the finger of God in the ice 
of the Allegheny and the Delaware, in the fog and the 
rain, and in the misguided bullets of the enemy. God 


IS THIS A CHRISTIAN NATION? 51 

as surely put Washington in our nation as he put 
Moses and Joshua in Israel. In the crisis of our Civil 
War, who can read the life of Lincoln without noting, 
as clearly as in the lives of Moses and Joshua, the 
hand of God leading and the acknowledgment of 
God's leading hand? Hear Lincoln as he takes leave 
of his friends at Springfield to assume the duties of 
President of our Godly nation in our greatest crisis: 
“ I go to assume a task more difficult than that which 
has devolved upon any other man since the days of 
Washington. He never would have succeeded ex¬ 
cept for the aid of Divine Providence, upon which he 
at all times relied. I feel that I cannot succeed with¬ 
out the same Divine blessing which sustained him, 
and on the same Almighty Being I place my reli¬ 
ance for support. And I hope you, my friends, will 
all pray that I may receive the Divine assistance with¬ 
out which I cannot succeed, but with which success 
is certain." His journey through our country to 
Washington was one continued acknowledgment of 
God and his dependence upon him. At Columbus, 
Ohio, he said: “I turn then to God for support, who 
has never forsaken the people." At Steubenville he 
said: “Nothing shall be wanting on my part, if sus¬ 
tained by the American people and God." At 
Buffalo, N. Y., he said; “I am trusting in that Su¬ 
preme Being who has never forsaken this favored 
land." At Albany he said: “I still have confidence 
that the Almighty, the Maker of the universe, will 
bring us through this." At Newark, N. J., he spoke 
these words: “I am sure, however, that I have not 
the ability to do anything unaided of God." At 
Trenton he said; “ I shall be most happy indeed if I 


52 THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 

shall be a humble instrument in the hands of the 
Almighty and of this his most chosen people, as the 
chosen instrument, also in the hands of the Almighty, 
of perpetuating the object of that great struggle/' 
At his last stop, in Philadelphia, he said: “I have said 
nothing but that I am willing to live by and, if it be 
the pleasure of the Almighty God, to die by/' Who 
could take this chain of sentences from the far West 
through the heart of our nation to the Capitol and 
not realize that the spirit of the President and of the 
nation was in harmony in the acknowledgment of 
God in the affairs of our government? 

In the next crisis, the Spanish-American War, 
when we should carry out the prophetic emblem of 
the olive branch in the right claw of the eagle and 
the arrows at the left, God called to the White House 
a Methodist preacher, a man of prayer and conse¬ 
cration, at whose tragical departure the whole na¬ 
tion sang his dying words with bated breath and 
tearful faces in a new national dedication, “Nearer, 
My God, to Thee, Nearer to Thee/' 

In the last great crisis of our national life God 
called a man trained in a preacher's home, schooled 
at the family altar and in the sanctuary, a man of 
faith, who loved the Bible and loved his father's 
God, to take the helm of the old ship in the great 
storm. Woodrow Wilson was a providential man. 

It is not necessary to argue that this has been a 
godly nation and that every man who turns his back 
on God or the acknowledgment of his leadership in 
this nation is un-American. In this day, when our 
nation is in the furnace and when our great principles, 
it seems, are molten for a new cast, let us not forget 


IS THIS A CHRISTIAN NATION? 53 

that this is God's nation and let us make him first. 
Let us sing as we never sang before, 

“Our father’s God, to Thee, 

Author of liberty, 

To Thee we sing; 

Long may our land be bright 
With freedom’s holy light; 

Protect us by Thy might, 

Great God, our King.” 

I have dwelt on the fact of our providential govern¬ 
ment because it is fundamental and out of it naturally 
grows and upon it are based the other American prin¬ 
ciples. This nation from its foundation has stood for 
the best things in morals. Individuals, groups, and 
sections have betimes forgotten our national ideals 
and have by gross immoralities brought reproach 
upon themselves and the nation, but at no time has 
the dominant voice of our nation spoken for the bad. 
That we may hold our exalted position among the 
nations, it will be necessary to fight for national 
purity. The battle before us is the maintenance of 
high moral national standards. This is a most ag¬ 
gressive age; many of our most important inventions 
have brought quickness of action. In every depart¬ 
ment of business machines have been invented to 
create speed; the spirit is contagious. The use of the 
automobile, the telephone, the telegraph, the aero¬ 
plane, and all such pieces of machinery has thrown 
us into a spirit of hurry. Changes are taking place 
rapidly in every department of thought and action. 
This is also an age of organization. Wherever mod¬ 
ern life is touched organization is found. Rapid 
movements are everywhere facilitated by perfect 


54 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


organization. The vital force of every government is 
morality. The Church is the only institution in the 
nation organized and operated specifically for the 
creation of spirituality and morality. If the moral 
stamina of our nation is to be preserved, the Church 
of God, in all its denominations, must be the agent, 
and the Church must awake and catch the spirit of 
the age. The Church must be organized, alert, active, 
and literally throbbing with the hurrying life of this 
busy age. 

There are two types of Christianity—the offensive 
and the defensive. The offensive Christian spends 
all his energies in keeping the devil off of himself. 
He says: “I am not going to steal or kill, drink liquor 
or rob a house. I am going to be a clean, strong, up¬ 
right man/’ “ Fine, but what are you going to do 
about this or that touching our national life?” 
“That is not my business.” A Y. M. C. A. Secre¬ 
tary approached a business man in St. Louis some 
years ago and asked him to make a contribution to 
forward the prohibition cause in that city. He re¬ 
plied: “My family consists of myself, wife, and 
daughter. I do not drink, my wife and daughter do 
not drink, and prohibition is not my affair.” His 
wife and daughter were on a visit to his wife's mother 
and were to return the following day. He went down 
to the railroad station to meet them and upon exami¬ 
nation of the bulletin board found that the train on 
which they were to arrive was marked “Indefinitely 
late.” He hurried to the dispatcher's office to in¬ 
quire as to the cause and learned that the train was in 
a wreck. He exclaimed: “My God! my wife and 
daughter are on that train. I must get there.” He 


IS THIS A CHRISTIAN NATION? 55 

was permitted to go out on the wrecking train. 
Reaching the spot, he found his wife and daughter 
lying upon the side of the track so mangled that they 
were recognized only by their clothes and jewelry. 
The wreck was caused by a drunken engineer. The 
day before this man had said, “ Prohibition is not my 
affair”; the day following he discovered otherwise. 
He called the Y. M. C. A. Secretary and contributed 
$500 for the overthrow of the saloon. It is every 
man’s business that nobody drinks; it is every Amer¬ 
ican’s business that nobody is immoral. The highest 
type Christian is both offensive and defensive. He is 
not only negatively good, but positively good. He 
not only refrains from doing wrong himself, but he 
exerts every possible power to prevent wrong in 
others. When Nehemiah undertook the task of re¬ 
building the walls of Jerusalem, he ordered the sol-* 
diers to take a trowel in one hand and a sword in the 
other; to lay stone and mortar with the trowel in 
undisturbed hours and to meet the enemy with the 
sword in the hour of battle. In an important sense 
every good life is an opposing force to immorality, 
but this force greatly multiplies its power by actively 
and energetically combating the wrong. 

There are three ways to fight immorality: First, by 
silent example. It is difficult to estimate the con¬ 
serving and preserving power in society of a consist¬ 
ent moral man or woman. Such characters con¬ 
stitute the salt of the earth. Second, by teaching— 
by infusing into others by pedagogic methods the 
fundamental principles of right and wrong. A young 
friend of mine entered a large grocery store as 
an employee with another friend of mine. He was 


56 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


anxious to make good. He appeared before the 
proprietor one morning and said: “1 note that a cer¬ 
tain article is beginning to spoil on our hands. Ought 
we not to try to push it out to-day? ” The merchant 
said quietly: “Young man, you do not understand 
the principles of this store. We do not send anything 
to our customers that we would not send to our own 
homes. If the article is beginning to spoil, let it spoil 
on our hands. We are playing fair and square with 
the people.” The young man never got over this 
lesson. He became the owner of his own business 
later and gave me this story at his own table when I 
said to him, “I have heard, sir, that the success of 
your business is due to the one fact that you are 
playing fair and square with the people. ,, He got his 
lesson from his employer, as did all the other em¬ 
ployees of that great firm. Thus a man may multiply 
morality in our nation by teaching, wherever he 
touches society, the morality which he practices. 
Third, as fine as are good example and wholesome 
teaching, there are conditions that require more 
active and aggressive work. It is needless to sow 
good seed in thorns and thistles. There are some 
evils that must be aggressively and heroically de¬ 
stroyed. There are times when we must literally 
fight for the right; when we must assault the wrong 
with every possible means for its destruction. 

There are a number of dangers that imminently 
threaten our nation. They call for a militant strug¬ 
gle, heroic and immediate. These dangers are: First, 
wealth; second, the pleasure craze; third, immodesty; 
fourth, lawlessness. 

That money has become a conspicuous danger to 


IS THIS A CHRISTIAN NATION? 57 

our civilization is a deliberate conclusion reached by 
every thoughtful student of morals. A few years ago 
there were only five millionaires in America. They 
have multiplied to hundreds. Luxuries are becoming 
enormous, frivolous, sinful, and debauching. In 
some circles there are cats and dogs valued at thou¬ 
sands, wearing necklaces of gems and served from 
silver platters. Money stands for too much. Money 
buys too much influence, covers too many sins, and 
promotes, elevates, and aggrandizes too many evil 
people. What a man is, and not what a man has, 
should determine his standing. When a golden robe 
can cover heinous moral deformities and permit 
wicked people to be respected among the good, we 
may definitely decide that our nation is beginning to 
decay at the vital spot. In a Southern city some 
years ago a very wealthy man lived in a palatial home; 
his only daughter married against his wishes and he 
disowned and disinherited her. Her husband died 
and she became a seamstress and lived for five years 
in purity, industry, and honor in a lonely home, her 
former social companions having utterly forsaken 
her. At the end of the five years her father came to 
his dying bed; he repented of his cruelty and left to 
her his entire fortune, including the palatial home. 
She reentered this home and the society folk began to 
stream in, ready to accept her again on the simple 
basis of what she had. Disgusted with them and 
their standard, she met them at the front door and 
said: “When I needed you, you did not appear; I do 
not need you now.” If men or women are no good, 
forty million dollars ought not to change their stand¬ 
ing among good men and women; if men and women 


58 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


are good, the loss of money should not change their 
standing. This false power of money recognized in 
our nation superinduces all kinds of wicked struggles 
for money—grafting, cheating, gambling, and finally 
robbing and defaulting. The tinsel and show of 
wealth, the fads and performances of the rich are 
producing a craze for money. If character were made 
the standard, the struggle would be virtuous and the 
attainment honorable. 

Second, the craze for pleasure and its consequent 
dissipation is everywhere visible. The jazz music, 
the utter ignoring of the moral element in the con¬ 
tact of the sexes in the various newly invented and 
shockingly immoral dances, the conversion of all pub¬ 
lic places into halls of revelry, and the turning of all 
social clubs, societies, fraternities and sororities, and 
even our schools and colleges into agencies of sport and 
feverish amusements is the dangerous sign of our age. 
Our schools, colleges, and universities formerly em¬ 
phasized and placed the high honors upon the suc¬ 
cessful mastery of courses in Latin, Greek, Mathemat¬ 
ics, and the Natural Sciences. To-day the emphasis 
and all the honors seem to rest upon the stars in foot¬ 
ball, baseball, glee clubs, and yells. The day set 
apart for national Thanksgiving, the primary pur¬ 
pose being a day of sacred worship and quiet and 
thoughtful consideration and meditation upon the 
goodness and mercy of God, with services in the 
church and gatherings in the home, has been turned 
into a day of hurrah and hilarious sport—and this 
by our Christian colleges and universities, the sup¬ 
posed leaders and teachers of the nation. Thanks¬ 
giving means Football! 


IS THIS A CHRISTIAN NATION? 


59 


Third, immodesty. In every civilization woman 
has been the standard. The regard paid to woman 
and her standard and deportment have somehow 
given the tone to the age. Wherever and whenever 
woman has maintained her modesty, her dignity, and 
her purity, society about her has been moral; wher¬ 
ever and whenever she has in any wise lowered the 
standards, the result to society has been shocking and 
disastrous. From this viewpoint, we look upon the 
shocking immodesty of our modern American woman 
with greatest solicitude. Wherever one's eyes are 
turned—on the street, in the shops, in public halls, 
and upon the stage—the utter disregard of delicacy 
and modesty appalls. This spirit of immodesty and 
immorality in woman has presaged the decay of 
society in all past history. 

At the World's Fair in Chicago, in 1893, one of 
the most revolting features on the Midway was the 
“hoochi-coochi" dance. The better class skipped 
it. “A sharp New York restaurant keeper witnessed 
this performance," says the New York Times , 
"and decided to add an attractive feature to 
his restaurant on Broadway. He secured four 
French girls to dance and a foreigner to beat the 
tom-tom. He took them to his restaurant and put 
them on the job. Five minutes later the police raided 
the house. He paid his fine without going to court. 
Public sentiment then would not stand for that. 
To-day the restaurants all along Broadway are open 
all night long, and shocking nudeness and vulgar 
contortions, immodest and immoral performances, go 
without a protest." We get our styles from New 
York; shall we take our morals from there too? Here 


60 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


is a field of aggressive activity which calls upon every 
true American. 

Fourth, lawlessness. In home, school, college, pub¬ 
lic life, and everywhere the outlaw spirit is to be ob¬ 
served. The lack of respect for rules, law, and dis¬ 
cipline is shockingly apparent everywhere. There 
has developed in our nation a so-called “democracy 
fad.” We hear the cry of “ Democracy, democracy,” 
everywhere. “Give us liberty,” “Down with re¬ 
stricting laws”—this is the spirit of the age. Men 
seem to forget that this modern cry for liberty is not 
a yearning for the liberty for which our fathers 
fought, for the liberty that makes us a great nation, 
for that high and wholesome liberty that permits 
every citizen to go where he pleases and do what he 
pleases so long as he walks within the limits of the 
laws which are made for all and for the protection of 
all; and they seem to forget also that no one individ¬ 
ual may trespass upon his neighbor or transgress the 
laws securing the welfare of all. The cry of too many 
laws and too much prohibition is heard on every hand. 
In modern defenses for the protection of life along our 
new and improved highways, we note that at every 
sharp curve and dangerous precipice the authorities 
have ordered and the construction companies have 
erected the strongest possible guards. The broad 
highway is open, and only the danger points are 
guarded. At every turn upon the great highway the 
flashlight calls, “ Slow down.” How silly it would be 
for a man who loves life and safety and who has a 
regard for other travelers upon the highway to cry, 
“Too many signs, too many road guards, too many 
danger signals at crossings!” The modern silly de- 


IS THIS A CHRISTIAN NATION? 


61 


mand for democracy is in fact a cry for outlawism. 
“Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth 
the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall re¬ 
ceive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a 
terror to good works, but to the evil.” Heady men in 
business who refuse to obey the rules of the firm, 
heedless men upon the highway who disregard the 
laws of travel and traffic, reckless engineers who pass 
danger signals, and so-called “moral” men who 
trample the laws that cross their taste and conven¬ 
ience—all are dangerous to business, life, and society. 
Unbroken horses chafe under the harness and im¬ 
moral men fret at the law. The hope of our nation is 
in our wholesome laws, patriotically honored and com¬ 
plied with and vigorously but kindly executed. 

I have little respect for the shallow, embryonic 
anarchist or outlaw who would close the church and 
the preacher’s mouth against all civic matters and 
State and National questions. When God exalted 
Isaiah to the prophetic altitudes and gave to him the 
vision of the ages, he saw the Church “in the last 
days” the most exalted and stable institution on the 
earth—“the mountain exalted above the hills,” the 
one preeminent organization, with all other institu¬ 
tions nestling like “hills in the lap of the mountains’’ 
and “all nations” of the earth coming hither to re¬ 
ceive the standards by which civil laws are to be 
framed and governments established. He sees the 
laws of the Prince of Peace dominating the nations, 
the downfall of militarism, and the transformation of 
war implements into tools of domestic felicity in this 
sublime passage: “And it shall come to pass in the 
last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall 


62 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


be established in the top of the mountains, and shall 
be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow 
unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, 
and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the 
house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his 
ways, and we will walk in his paths; for out of Zion 
shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from 
Jerusalem.” (Isa. ii. 2, 3.) 

The hope of this nation, established and guided by 
the hand of God, and the hope of all the nations which 
we touch lies in the full recognition that this is God's 
country, God's government, and God's people. Let 
every American citizen in recognition of his lofty 
position be true to God and to this great nation which, 
in the providence of God and through his leader¬ 
ship, shall bless and guide the nations of the earth. 

The overwhelming demand of the age is a coura¬ 
geous ministry throughout our nation who will give 
forth the voice of Zion, assault the strongholds of 
sin, and arouse our people to action; who will sound 
the toxin of war against these national sins, point 
out our national privileges and obligations, and thus 
hasten our exaltation among the nations and in¬ 
crease our power and efficiency in promulgating these 
laws of our Christian civilization among the nations 
of the earth for the promotion of world justice, peace, 
friendliness, and fraternity. 


THE LAW AND ITS EFFECT 
UPON CHARACTER 


THE LAW AND ITS EFFECT UPON 
CHARACTER 

“Let every soul be in subjection to the higher powers: for there 
is no power but of God; and the powers '1 that be are ordained 
of God.” (Romans xiii. 1.) 

M Y subject at this hour is “The Law and Its 
Effect upon Character/' It is my purpose to 
correct a very common fallacy held by many 
quite intelligent and well-informed people. We hear 
this fallacy expressed in hotel lobbies, on the street, 
in public gatherings, private conversations, and often 
from speakers' platforms. 

The advocates of the fallacy, with the most sophis¬ 
ticated air, announce as if they were giving forth a 
maxim, “You cannot make people good by law," 
“You cannot drive men to righteousness," “A pro¬ 
hibition law only arouses resentment and provokes 
men to its violation." The adherents of this fallacy 
undertake to prove it and satisfy many of their hear¬ 
ers by arguments as fallacious as the proposition. 
Most of the argument consists in reciting human ex¬ 
periences such as these: “The only time I ever wanted 
a drink of liquor was when I first read the law pro¬ 
hibiting its sale and use"; “I never want to do wrong 
until some prohibitionist says, ‘Thou shaltnot'"; 
“The best schools I have ever seen have been where 
the teachers had no rules. When a boy or girl is con¬ 
fronted with a set of rules, the desire to violate them 
is immediately aroused" (No wonder the boy said, 
5 ( 65 ) 


66 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


“There is nothin' fittento eat 'cept that which you 
dasn't to eat and nothin' fitten to do'cept what you 
dasn't to do"); “We have too many;laws"; “The 
multiplicity of the prohibition laws has made us a 
nation of law haters and law violators "; “ If you want 
a mule to stay in a pasture, turn bini into an ad¬ 
joining meadow and let him jump into the pasture." 
All such statements as these, which seem so worthy 
to those who do not think carefully and those who 
know nothing of the fundamental laws of a moral 
government, prove only the fact that man and beast 
are naturally insubordinate and must be trained to 
obedience by law and harness. No man is moral un¬ 
less he has had training somewhere by law, and no 
beast is gentle unless he has been trained somewhere 
in harness. The man or beast that rebels against law 
or harness only proves that his training has been neg¬ 
lected or deficient. The spirit that revolts against 
law is the spirit of insubordination that manifested 
itself first in the Garden of Eden. 

The profound student of moral philosophy knows 
that the only way to produce good morals is by moral 
conduct and the only way to secure moral conduct is 
by a code of moral laws. “ Train up a child in the way 
he should go: and when he is old he will not depart 
from it." An orderly family is the result of parental 
authority requiring obedience to law. 

When God nationalized Israel, he led the people to 
the foot of Sinai, then called their leader to its sum¬ 
mit and delivered to him the decalogue, which com¬ 
prises God's ten fundamental principles of national 
government. This decalogue is the greatest docu¬ 
ment ever put into words, with the exception of the 


THE LAW AND CHARACTER. 


67 


Sermon on the Mount. ' Its contents prove it divine. 
No man of the age could have produced a statement 
so comprehensive, so fundamental and eternal. It 
is not only the foundation of our government, but it 
contains the principles upon which all successful 
governments of past history have been founded. 
These ten fundamental statements of law naturally 
divide into five sections, and each section constitutes 
a necessary and indispensable element in the char¬ 
acter of a great nation. 

The first section sets up God. History furnishes no' 
outstanding nation without a God and a religion. 
The higher the type of the God or gods set up, the 
higher the civilization and greater the accomplish¬ 
ments of the nation. The Greek and Roman nations 
were at their height when their gods were most ex¬ 
alted, and both nations sank with the corruption of 
their gods. The Omnipotent, Omniscient, Eternal 
God of love and pity, accepted in faith, honored in 
obedience, worshiped in reverence, and realized in 
experience is the hope of our nation. The first four 
commandments are used in bringing the people to a 
realization of their God. The first commandment— 
one God; second commandment—no images; third 
commandment—his name reverenced; fourth com¬ 
mandment—a day set apart for his worship. All 
these elements are necessary to establish the God of 
a nation. The second section is the “home” section. 
When honor to father and mother goes down, the home 
goes down. A nation cannot live without homes; 
the home produces its citizens and trains them 
to law and obedience. 

The third section constitutes the “protective” 


68 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


law, which is the palladium of every civil government 
—the protection of life, property, and home: “Thou 
shalt not kill,” “Thou shalt not steal,” and “Thou 
shalt not commit adultery.” The necessary condition 
in every civil government is that every citizen of the 
government shall have a right to his own life, his own 
acquired property, and his own life—or the purity 
and safety of his home. The glory of the government 
is that every citizen shall, in absolute security of his 
own life, retire to his own home in perfect safety and 
enjoy his own family and all that he has acquired 
unmolested. 

The fourth section is “testimony.” A nation can¬ 
not live without courts, without a bar before which 
wrongs may be corrected. Courts are ineffective 
without witnesses and testimony is ineffective when 
false. “Thou shalt not bear false witness against 
thy neighbor.” 

The fifth section sets forth the “desire” to do what 
is right. The nine commandments were given to 
form a character capable of the tenth. When one 
follows the law from first to ninth, he will have devel¬ 
oped a character capable of proper desires. God may 
then appeal to his character and say, “Thou shalt 
not covet.” This decalogue constitutes the founda¬ 
tion of our government and the obedience to these 
laws has produced our splendid citizenship. Part of 
these laws are mandatory and part are prohibitory— 
each worthless without the other. No character can 
be produced and no social or civil government can be 
maintained without prohibition laws. 

I have always loved fine horses. At one period of 
my life I had an ambition to own one of the finest 


THE LAW AND CHARACTER 


69 


horses in the country. I secured the son of Crown 
Prince. I bought him when a colt. He stood on his 
hind feet too much for me. I sent him to the best 
horse trainer in the country. I thought he was one 
of the wildest animals I ever saw when I sent him 
to the horse trainer. When he returned I found him 
the gentlest horse I ever owned. When he was ready 
to bring home, the horse trainer sent for me to show 
me the result of his work. We walked down into the 
meadow where the horse was grazing. He called, 
“Prince, come here,” and to my surprise he lifted his 
head, came in a run, and laid his head on the shoulder 
of the trainer as if he meant to caress him. The trainer 
turned and walked toward the barn, saying, “Come on, 
Prince,” and he followed, nipping in a friendly way 
at the clothing of the trainer as if delighted to be his 
companion. When we reached the barn he dropped 
the harness on him, stepped to the buggy, lifted the 
shafts, said, “Come under, Prince/' and he trotted 
under the shafts as if delighted to obey. We got into 
the buggy, he dropped the lines on the dashboard, 
talked to the horse as if he were a human, and he 
obeyed. After we had made the rounds of trial and 
had driven back to the barn, I said: “That's the 
gentlest horse I ever saw. Tell me how you did it.” 
He replied: “I did it with five prohibition laws: a 
wall, a whip, harness, unbreakable shafts, and un¬ 
breakable lines.” 

He took me to a pen fifteen feet in diameter, fifteen 
feet high, built of heavy plank—literally an unbreak¬ 
able prison. He said: “I put this horse in this pen 
and with my whip I forced him to obey me. He stood 
on his hind feet and surged against the sides of the 


70 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER - 


wall. He ran from side to side as if determined to 
break through. I forced him with a whip to ap¬ 
proach me. I then stroked his head and showed him 
that I was his friend, but I also was his master. Hav¬ 
ing completely mastered him in this unbreakable pen, 
I taught him to obey me in everything. I then took 
him out into the barn lot and gave him larger space 
and continued the training, and now when I walk 
down into the meadow he follows me around as if he 
wanted me to ask him to do something. He obeys 
each word and motion. I then put upon him an un¬ 
breakable set of harness and hitched him to a cart 
with unbreakable shafts and with unbreakable lines I 
forced him to obey me, and now every act of the horse 
indicates that it is his delight to do what I ask him 
to do.” 

This is God's fundamental principle in the home 
and in all governmental organizations. One cannot 
train without law. We hear unthinking people say, 
“You cannot legislate a man into being good,” “You 
cannot make man moral by laws.” The fact is that 
this is the only possible way to make man good. He 
must be taught to obey the law until it becomes his 
delight to do the law. We might as well say, “You 
must not put harness on a horse to gentle him. Let 
him run wild in the pasture and some day he will 
come up and bow his head for the bridle and kindly 
offer himself for the harness.” If you want a horse 
to be gentle, he must be broken to harness. If men 
are to be good, they must be trained by law. 

I have five children. When the world began to bid 
for them, I said: “Children, you cannot go there, you 
cannot do this and that. I know what that leads to, 


The law and Character 


n 


I know what kind of character that kind of conduct 
makes.” They cried, and I often cried with them; 
but I held them to the law, and now, thank God, they 
don't want to go there. You cannot produce men or 
women with the highest character without requiring 
their obedience to the best laws. 

The civilizations of the past have arisen by the 
same moral laws and have gone down by the same 
immoral laws. Matthew Arnold, the English scholar 
and critic, wisely asserted that “no nation has ever 
come to prominence without the elements of moral¬ 
ity, and no nation has ever gone down to shame ex¬ 
cept by immorality.” The life of a nation rests upon 
its morality. Morality can be created in a nation 
only by forced obedience to moral law. A part of the 
Decalogue is mandatory and a part is prohibitory; 
the prohibitory part of the law is as necessary as the 
mandatory. It is worse than silly to assert, as if it 
were a maxim, that “Man cannot be made good by 
law” and that “Prohibitory laws do more harm than 
good.” 

Among the laws of every successful nation of the 
past will be found laws similar to our Decalogue: 
“Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” “Re¬ 
member the sabbath day, to keep it holy,” “Honor 
thy father and thy mother,” “Thou shalt not kill,” 
“Thou shalt not commit adultery,” “Thou shalt 
not steal.” The worship of God, the observance 
of sacred days, the establishment of the home, and 
the preservation of life, property, and character 
have been fundamental to every nation. To deny 
this is to reveal the fact that one is utterly ignorant 
of the history of nations. 


72 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


The criminal statistics of the past will demonstrate 
the alarming fact that alcohol is the mother of god¬ 
lessness, irreverence, murder, theft, and adultery. To 
admit that laws against godlessness, irreverence, mur¬ 
der, theft, and adultery are necessary to the preserva¬ 
tion of the government and to deny the desirability 
and necessity of a law prohibiting the sale and use of 
alcohol—the mother of them all—is contrary to 
every wholesome notion of government. 

Intelligence deals with causes; ignorance deals with 
effects. When typhoid fever broke out in one section 
of the city of Chicago, ignorance employed physi¬ 
cians, bought medicine, hired nurses, bought caskets 
and cemetery lots, contributed money and shed tears; 
intelligence announced that there was a cause, and 
that if the cause were removed the disease would stop 
and there would be no necessity for physicians, nurses, 
caskets, cemetery lots, tears, and voluntary contribu¬ 
tions. Intelligence proclaimed that the cause would 
be found in the meat, in the water, in the milk, or in 
the filth of the environment. Intelligence began the 
search, located the typhoid germ in the milk, and 
prohibited the sale of the milk by the dairy in whose 
milk the typhoid germs were found. Immediately 
health and happiness were restored. 

For years ignorance has handled alcohol. It has 
built insane asylums, asylums for the blind, deaf, de¬ 
formed, epileptic, and inebriates, asylums for the 
orphans, and jails and penitentiaries. It has hired 
physicians, nurses, and officers and spent millions of 
dollars. Intelligence has at last taken charge of the 
proposition; intelligence has gone to these various 
institutions and hunted down the causes, and shock- 


THE LAW AND CHARACTER 73 

ing are the discoveries. In each case alcohol is the 
leading cause.' 

When intelligence enters the insane asylum the 
question is asked, “What causes insanity?” The 
highest scientific authority is brought to bear and the 
answer in general terms is, “Mental deterioration.” 
“What is the greatest mental deteriorator known to 
science?” The answer comes back, “Alcohol.” In¬ 
telligence suggests, “Prohibit alcohol, destroy al¬ 
cohol, and decrease insanity.” 

Intelligence goes to the asylum for the blind, deaf, 
deformed, epileptic, and inebriates and the question 
is asked, “What in general terms causes these 
diseases? ” and the scientists reply: “The disturbance, 
disease, and disorder of the nerve centers upon which 
these vital organs depend.” The question is asked, 
“What is the greatest disturber and deteriorator of 
the nerve system known to science?” and the an¬ 
swer comes back, “ Alcohol.” Prohibit alcohol and de¬ 
crease the number of inmates in these eleemosynary 
institutions, and the necessity for physicians, nurses, 
officers, and servants which involves the expenditure 
of enormous sums of money. 

Ignorance examines the home and finds one in 
every twelve of the marriages in America annulled by 
divorce; widows turned out without support and 
orphans without a home. Ignorance builds orphans' 
asylums, homes for the care of helpless females, hired 
teachers, servants and officers, and expends large 
sums of money; intelligence proclaims that there is a 
cause for divorce and the orphanage, ruined homes 
and distorted lives. The sociologists are put on the 
proposition; questionnaires are answered, unmistak- 


74 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


able statistics are set up, and undeniable results are 
reached. There is a cause—alcohol causes more di¬ 
vorces, ruined homes, and orphans than all other 
causes combined. “Prohibit alcohol,” says intelli¬ 
gence, and save the homes, the children, and the na¬ 
tion. 

Next, ignorance approaches criminality, employs 
policemen and sheriffs, organizes courts, builds jails 
and penitentiaries, and spends millions. Intelligence 
proclaims that there is a cause for criminality. The 
most scientific criminologists are put on the study 
of the field. “What causes criminality?” and the 
answer comes back: “Alcohol causes more criminality 
than all other causes combined.” Prohibit alcohol 
and dimish the criminals, the officers, the jails and 
penitentiaries, and the vast expenditures. 

Ignorance cries: “ Give us liberty, give us democra¬ 
cy; down with prohibition laws; let us govern our¬ 
selves.” Bad men are elected to office; officers are 
found to be in collusion with criminals; crime is un¬ 
punished; criminals go free; murder, theft, burglary, 
and riots prevail. Intelligence proclaims, “A de¬ 
mocracy can exist only when people are intelligent 
and moral; ignorance and immorality cannot es¬ 
tablish and maintain a democratic government. 
There is a cause for criminality and the failure of 
government/’ Intelligent statesmen are put to work 
on the proposition, “What is the cause of ignorance 
and immorality in politics and government?” and 
the answer comes back, “Alcohol.” Alcohol de¬ 
generates the citizens, destroys conscience, corrupts 
the ballot, elects bad men to office, paralyzes the 
law, and destroys government. Prohibit alcohol and 


THE LAW AND CHARACTER 


75 


the former inebriate's children are found in school, 
men are sober, good men are elected to office, the law 
is enforced, peace and prosperity reign, and the 
people are happy. 

Although we have passed our prohibition laws and 
added the prohibition amendment, yet liquor is sold 
and drunk. As a matter of tested fact, prohibition 
does not prohibit. That only proves the necessity 
of the law and proclaims in thunder tones that we 
ought to have had the amendment sooner. We 
ought to have had the amendment before our citizens 
were debauched by drink, their characters weakened, 
their brains diseased, and their sense of obedience to 
law blunted and distorted. After a hundred years of 
drunkenness, with all of its hereditary debasement in 
body, brain, and character and after a hundred years 
of the debauchery of our citizens, it is marvelous that 
the law is so well executed in the first decade of its 
existence. 

Suppose theft had been licensed for a hundred 
years; suppose our citizens had grown rich from 
licensed robbery, had organized a Theft and Robbers' 
Association and capitalized it, had elected officers, 
controlled politics, and made the business popular; 
suppose thieving circles had been organized in hotels, 
clubs, and everywhere; suppose men and women in 
high social circles had robbing circles in parlor or 
drawing rooms; suppose senators and congressmen 
robbed each other and the law protected and en¬ 
couraged it by becoming a partner and sharing the 
revenue; suppose the President of the United States 
would join senators on a fishing trip and rob the 
neighbors and laugh over it; suppose after robbery 


76 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


and theft had been general for a hundred years and 
the law had been enacted, “Thou shalt not steal”— 
think you honesty would have been immediate, that 
all stealing and robbery would cease? With a nation 
of robbers cultivated and prepared for a hundred years, 
could we hope, by passing a law, to produce suddenly 
a nation of honest people? We must not expect too 
much from law. Law works slowly, law does not 
manufacture character on the spot, law slowly 
trains and gradually produces character. Good laws 
well enforced produce good character and good citizen¬ 
ship; good laws poorly enforced or lawlessness result 
in bad character and bad citizenship. The only ques¬ 
tion about a law is whether or not it is good or 
bad if enforced. The fact that it is not enforced is 
proof that the people have been debauched or have 
become lawless. The only question for an American 
citizen to settle is whether alcohol is a safe commod¬ 
ity to be distributed to our people; whether it pro¬ 
duces infirmities and diseases and debauches. 

In the light of modern science and carefully and 
scientifically reported data no intelligent witness 
could depose in favor of alcohol. It is a poison; it is 
a deteriorator of brain, nerve, stomach, heart, and 
character; it debauches the body, mind, and soul. If 
the law should prohibit fever-infected milk, germ¬ 
laden meat, and other disease-and death producing 
agencies, why not prohibit the sale of the most dead¬ 
ly and devastating of all? The sale of alcohol is 
wrong; prohibition is right. Let us rally to our law 
and save our citizenship and nation from physical 
and moral debauch. 

Since it is an enemy to every purpose of our Consti- 


THE LAW AND CHARACTER 


77 


tution, every phase of our industry, and every prin¬ 
ciple of our civilization, why not blot it out? The 
Supreme Court has declared it to be a public nui¬ 
sance, and subject to segregation; and every good 
citizen knows it to be an outlaw and an enemy to 
society. The Supreme Court of the United States 
has decided that no citizen has an inherent right to 
sell it or keep it for his own use; what right, therefore, 
can be involved in its destruction? Who will grant 
it a right to live anywhere or raise the question of 
personal rights in its destruction? It is an outlaw, a 
criminal, and a nuisance; cursed of God, outlawed by 
government, criminalized by courts, and condemned 
by every good citizen; what right can be involved in 
its destruction? It is the mother of crimes, mobs, and 
disorders; it is the prolific parent of poverty, disease, 
inefficiency, and imbecility; it is an enemy to home, 
farm, factory, and store; it extinguishes the light of 
happiness, smolders the fire of love, blots out the star 
of hope; it destroys the smile of woman, hushes the 
prattle of children, silences the laughter of youth, 
and robs old age of peace; it is an enemy to every 
man and every land, to every principle of right and 
every agency of good, to every school of uplift, and 
every factory of thrift. 

May God doom it, as he has damned it, and push 
it from our fair land! May he paralyze every arm 
that would support it, and silence every tongue that 
would defend it! 






THE CHRISTIAN HOME 


















. 






V 









♦' ' V 



































• ' ' 


* . 


, • 





























































I 

. 






THE CHRISTIAN HOME* 

“ For I know him , that he will command his children and his 
household after him , and they shall keep the way of the Lord to 
do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abra¬ 
ham that which he hath spoken of him* 1 (Genesis xviiil. 9.) 

I SHALL throw myself upon the sympathy and 
prayers of this great audience to-night as I invite 
your attention to a subject that ought to engage 
the thought of every character present. If you are a 
father or a mother, a son or a daughter, the subject of 
this hour ought to secure your thoughtful attention. 
I shall go with you to-night to the dearest and most 
sacred spot on earth to you and me—a spot around 
which cluster the sweetest associations and the most 
precious memories. I shall speak to-night of home. 
The longer I live, the more I visit from home to home, 
the more I see of the sorrows and cares, the successes 
and failures of this life, the more I am impressed that 
the home problem is the greatest problem of our 
civilization. The homes of our country are so many 
streams pouring themselves into the great current of 
moral, social, and political life. If the home life is 
pure, all is pure. The home is the center of every¬ 
thing. 

From the proper or improper settlement of the 


*This sermon was preached on Friday evening, March 8, 
1895, to five thousand people in the great entertainment hall 
of the Exposition Building in St. Louis, Mo., during the 
Jones-Stuart meetings in that city. 

6 


( 81 ) 



82 THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 

home question comes more of joy or sorrow, more of 
weal or woe, than from all other questions combined. 
Build your palaces, amass your great fortunes, pile 
up your luxuries all about you, provide for the satis¬ 
faction of every desire; but as you sit amid these lux¬ 
uries and wait for the staggering steps of a drunken 
son, or contemplate the downward steps of a way¬ 
ward daughter, happiness flies out of your heart and 
your home. There is nothing that can render happy 
the parents of godless, wayward children. Around 
the home circle of the cottage or the palace are 
greater possibilities of joy or sorrow than in all the 
rest of the world. Not only does the happiness of the 
world center in the home, but the moral, social, and 
civil life of the world emanates from the home. 
Every drunkard, every gambler, every debauchee, 
every lost character once sat in mother’s lap and 
learned the mother tongue and mother thought and 
mother action—the mother life. The downfall of 
every character can be traced to some defect in the 
home life. If God Almighty has fixed it up so that 
we cannot take our children to heaven with us, he has 
put us in a horrible condition. The prettiest picture 
earth furnishes is a whole family on the way to heav¬ 
en; the most horrible picture is a whole family on the 
way to hell. I believe in the truth of the proverb of 
this Book: “Train up a child in the way he should go, 
and when he is old he will not depart from it.” A 
child properly trained up to the proper point will not 
go astray. The normal way to get rid of drunkards is 
to quit raising them; the normal way to get rid of 
liars, thieves, and debauchees is to quit raising them. 
Every man steps from the home door into the social. 


THE CHRISTIAN HOME 


83 


moral, and civil world. What he is upon the home 
step he will be in the field of life. When Mr. Glad¬ 
stone and Mr. Talmage were talking over great inter¬ 
national questions, Mr. Gladstone flashed his intelli¬ 
gent eye upon the great preacher and said: “There 
is but one question. Settle that right, and you settle 
all others. That question is Christianity.” I stand 
in my place to-night to say that if you settle Chris¬ 
tianity right in the home it settles all questions 
everywhere. National life never rises above the 
home life and never sinks below it. 

When the Lacedaemonian desired Lycurgus to es¬ 
tablish a democracy in the State, he replied: “ Go you, 
friend, and make the experiment first in your own 
house/ , Napoleon being asked, “What is the great¬ 
est want of the French people?” replied: “Mothers.” 
Church life cannot rise higher than home life. I have 
no faith in the woman that talks of heaven at church 
and makes a hell of her home. If I were investigating 
a woman's piety, I would rather take the evidence of 
the cook than of the preacher. The talk of a clean 
heart at the church is discounted when no soap is 
used at home. The talk of a perfect Christian life is 
discounted by the absence of buttons and big patches 
on the clothes of unkempt children at home. Some 
men talk in the church like angels and talk to their 
families like demons. Church religion never goes 
above home religion. You cannot shout higher than 
you live. Home is the head fountain. When water 
rises above its fountain it has to be forced with a pump. 
When I hear people talking at church higher than 
they live at home, I know the talk is pumped up. 
People who do not quarrel at home rarely quarrel 


84 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


with their neighbors. As we live in the home world, 
so we live in all worlds, whatever our professions are. 

Henry Grady, the brilliant Georgia orator, so short 
lived, to the regret of this great republic, tells us 
where he found the home of his country. As he stood 
in Washington and looked upon the capitol for the 
first time tears came to his eyes, and he said to him¬ 
self: “ Here is the home of my nation. That building 
is the official home of the greatest nation God's eye 
ever saw." A few weeks later, after spending the 
night in an old-fashioned country home, where the 
noble Christian father read from the old-fashioned 
Bible and knelt with his children around the family 
altar; and after having associated for a day and night 
with the manly Christian man and the noble Chris¬ 
tian woman in this old-fashioned Christian home, he 
said: "I was mistaken in Washington; that pile of 
marble, magnificent as it is, is not the home of my 
country, but here in these country homes are reared 
the men and women of my country." These homes 
give us our men and women. Brick and marble do 
not make a country; men and women make a coun¬ 
try. When God himself would start a nation he made 
the home life the deciding question, and selected 
Abraham as the foundation on the ground set forth 
in my text, because God knew him, that he would 
command his children and his household after him, 
and that God would therefore be able “to bring upon 
Abraham that which he had spoken of him." 

God's ideal nation starts with the home, with the 
father of the home “walking in the way of the Lord, 
to do justice and judgment," and his children and his 
household following after him. 


THE CHRISTIAN HOME 


85 


The two central ideas of the home life expressed in 
this text are the fundamental ideas of a successful 
home and national life. 

Home authority and home example are expressed 
in the words, “He will command his children and his 
household after him.” The ten years I spent as a 
school-teacher, where, from the log schoolhouse in the 
mountains to the boarding college of the towns, I met 
every class and condition of children—where, as the 
old gladiator said, “ I met upon the arena every shape 
of man or beast”—I learned the great truth of this 
text, that home authority and home example 
settle the great question of life and character. 
The years spent as a Methodist preacher, visit¬ 
ing from house to house, and the years spent in 
traveling over this great country of ours, have only 
furnished illustrations on every hand in proof of the 
fact that neither the law nor the gospel can make a 
Christian nation without the help of home authority 
and home example. Anarchy is not born in the Hay- 
market of Chicago; outlawism is not born in street 
mobs. The question of obedience to law is settled in 
childhood. The child who does not obey his father 
and mother will obey neither social, civil, nor divine 
laws. When God said, “Children, obey your par¬ 
ents,” he told the world where obedience originates. 

The most dangerous sign of the times is the neglect 
of home life and the growing disrespect of children for 
parents. Themistocles once said: “My little child 
rules all Greece.” When asked what he meant, he 
replied: “The little child rules its mother, the mother 
rules me, I rule Athens, and Athens rules all Greece. ” 
They have many representatives in this country. 


86 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


A little six-year-old boy can scream and stamp and 
boss a household, postpone a trip, change a program, 
and bring father and mother to his terms. I was in a 
home sometime ago where a father asked a little six- 
year-old child to shut the door. She replied: “I 
won't do it.” He said: “Poor papa will have to shut 
it himself.” She replied: “I don't care; I won't.” 
And I saw poor papa get up and shut the door. Hav¬ 
ing been an old school-teacher, I wanted to borrow 
that child for about fifteen minutes; but upon mature 
reflection I decided that her father was the fellow that 
needed lending. No man can bring a greater curse 
upon law and order and a good civilization than to 
turn such creatures out into the world. Uncontrolled 
at six, and outlaws at twenty. A lady once heard me 
tell this incident. Her little boy was present. She 
asked him on their return home if he had heard the 
incident. He replied: “Yes, mamma.” She asked 
him what the little girl needed, supposing that he 
would answer, “A whipping;” but the little philoso¬ 
pher replied, “ She needed a daddy.” The need of the 
world to-day, in the vernacular of that child, is some 
first-class daddies and mammies. Many of our boys 
are like the fellow who came down the river to Knox¬ 
ville on a log raft with his father, and when asked 
where he was “brought up,” replied: “I wa'n't 
brought up at all. I just come down on the raft with 
dad.” Many boys have never been properly brought 
up; they just drifted along with a careless father. 

The learning of the academy, the college, the uni¬ 
versity, may fade from the mind, but the simple 
lessons of home defy years and live on. The words 
of a mother make deeper impressions than any other 


THE CHRISTIAN HOME 


87 


words that touch our plastic childhood. The mother 
of Walter Scott was well educated and a great lover of 
poetry and painting. The mother of Byron was 
proud and ill-tempered and violent. The mother of 
Napoleon Bonaparte was full of ambition and energy. 
The mother of Lord Bacon was a woman of superior 
mind and deep piety. The mother of Nero was a 
murderess. The mother of Washington was a pure 
and good woman. The mother of Patrick Henry was 
eloquent in speech. The mother of John and 
Charles Wesley was intelligent and pious and full of 
executive ability. The mother of Doddridge taught 
him Scripture history from the Dutch tiles on the 
fireplace, on which there were pictures of subjects 
taken from the Bible. 

When the devil robs a boy, the last thing he takes 
are the early impressions made by his father and 
mother. 

I talked with a trainer of the finest lot of educated 
dogs that ever went through this country. I asked 
him to give me two or three rules for training dogs. 
He replied: “First, I get the dog when he is a pup. 
I get full control of the pup, and then everything is 
easy. I have him to do over and over the part he is 
to perform in public until it becomes a habit.” As I 
walked away I said: “God gives us our children when 
they are little. He has made them to look like us, 
talk like us, and to imitate us naturally in all we do and 
say.” What an opportunity! And if we were only as 
wise as the dog trainer, and would get complete con¬ 
trol of the child, and have him to perform over and 
over the part he is to play upon the stage of human 
life, we should find the truth of the proverb, “Train 


88 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


up a child in the way he should go, and when he is 
old he wiil not depart from it.” 

Prayer and Hickory. 

A lady who had reared seven noble Christian sons, 
with not a black sheep in the fold, was asked by an 
old friend of mine how she did it. She replied: “ I did 
it with prayer and hickory.” Two better instruments 
were never used. I do not mean to encourage the 
brutal punishment of children, but when solid piety 
and wholesome authority go hand in hand obedient 
and pious children follow. Example and authority 
go together. God knew that Abraham would com¬ 
mand his children after him. 

After delivering this sermon in the State of Virgin¬ 
ia on one occasion, a gentleman came to me, gripped 
my hand, and said, with tears in his eyes: “ Don't fail, 
wherever you go, to impress upon the people that old 
woman's prayer-and-hickory method.” He said: 
“ I was the indulgent father of an only son. I was sit¬ 
ting by my fire one night after my boy had been sent 
home for insubordination to college authority for the 
second time. Wife said: ‘Why don't you come to 
bed?' I replied: ‘I cannot sleep.' ‘Why?' said she. 
I said: ‘I am thinking about our boy.' She replied: 
‘It is your fault; you have never controlled him, and 
how could you expect others to do so?' The words 
were like a dagger in my heart, but I knew they were 
true. I sunk down on my knees by the chair and 
said: ‘O God, if you will forgive the past, I will con¬ 
trol that boy in the future.' I slept but little that 
night. The next morning, after breakfast, I said to 
the boy: ‘Come and go with me.' He was fifteen 


THE CHRISTIAN HOME 


89 


years of age. We walked out into a woodland near 
the house. I cut a good switch, rehearsed to the boy 
his course of disobedience, explained to him my own 
mistakes, and told him that I had brought him out 
there to correct him for his disobedience. I told him 
to take off his coat. He replied; *1 won't do it.' I 
looked him in the face and said: ‘My boy, I am your 
father; you are my son. I promised God Almighty 
last night on my knees that I would control you, and 
I will whip you here this morning, or you or I will die 
in this woodland. Take off your coat, sir!' He saw 
in my eye for the first time in his life the spirit of 
authority. He drew his coat in a moment, and I gave 
him a whipping, at the conclusion of which I said, 
‘Now kneel down with me;' and we knelt there to¬ 
gether, and I told God of my own neglect and of my 
boy's wayward conduct, and promised God in the 
hearing of my boy to be faithful to my duty the re¬ 
mainder of my life, and prayed God's blessing on my 
wayward child. When we arose from our knees he 
put his arm around my neck and his head on my 
bosom. We wept together for a long time. Then he 
looked up and said: ‘Father, I will never give you 
any more trouble.' And from that day to this I have 
never had a care about him; he has been the most 
obedient son a father ever had. He is married 
now, is a steward in the Methodist Church, and no 
true, nobler Christian man walks the earth than 
my precious son." 

How many a wayward boy all over this country 
might be saved by the proper combination of whole¬ 
some authority and a godly example! Our children 
are turned out on the streets of the cities, and God 


90 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


only knows where they go and what they do. ' The 
boys and girls in this country are like Tennessee oats 
in dry weather—they “head” too soon. Girls are 
women at thirteen, and boys are men at fifteen. 

Passing down the streets of Chattanooga, I saw an 
old cow trotting along at the rear of a wagon. She 
was not tied, but everywhere the wagon went the 
nose of the old cow was close to the hind gate. She 
paid no attention to carriage or wagon or street car. 
She followed the wagon, and I could not understand 
it. I waited until the wagon approached me, and as¬ 
certained the secret. A little calf was in a box up in 
that wagon. She was determined to see what be¬ 
came of her calf. I pointed it out to a friend, then 
called his attention to three little boys standing in the 
door of a saloon across the street, and said: “I do not 
know where the mother of those boys is, but that old 
cow is a more faithful mother than the mother of those 
three boys. The old cow is determined to know 
where her calf goes, but the mother of those boys 
doesn't care where they go.” I never see a hen gather 
her little ones under her wings as a hawk flies over the 
yard but I wish, while our moral atmosphere is liter¬ 
ally full of the hawks of hell, that our mothers and 
fathers would keep their children close under the 
parental wing and shield them from the temptations 
of the evil one. 

Mrs. Susanna Wesley, who gave to the world such 
a noble family, the lives of whom will bless the world 
for generations to come, heeded the command of God 
in the rearing of her nineteen children. Her first step, 
she says, was to get complete control of the child. 
How that is done I cannot tell you. I wish I could 


THE CHRISTIAN HOME 


91 


give an unerring rule, but the rule differs with the dis¬ 
position of the child. One thing is true: authority is 
necessary. Take the child and the problem to God; 
but as you love your child and fear your God, secure 
its obedience to your authority. 

A poor young man stood before the judge to be 
sentenced to death; and when the judge asked if he 
had anything to say why the sentence of death should 
not be passed upon him, he bowed his head and said: 
“ 0, if Fd had a mother/' Many a boy who has gone 
into a life of reckless folly, without the restraints of 
home, can stand up in his debauch to-night and say, 
“O, if I'd had a mother! 0, if I'd had a mother!" 
Some boys can say, as the tramp said when asked how 
long he had been an orphan, “ I was born an orphan." 
I am profoundly thankful above all things for the fact 
that I have a good mother—a mother who, when she 
said “ George, you shall not," saw that I did not. 
If I did, then she did. I owe all that I am, morally 
and religiously, to the authority of a good mother. I 
also owe my life to that authority. I give this little 
history, which is sacred to me. A few years ago three 
other young men and I planned a trip to Europe. We 
had read and talked and planned for months. A few 
months before we were ready to start I mentioned the 
trip to my mother, who since my father's death has 
made her home with me—and it has been my sweetest 
pleasure to give her the sunniest and best room in my 
home. When I mentioned the trip, she said: “ George, 
I am getting old; you are my only stay; I am afraid 
of the ocean; I cannot let you go while I live. Wait 
till I am gone, and then you can go to Europe." I 
thought it was a mere kind of sentiment with mother. 


92 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


and decided that I would get all things ready for the 
trip, believing that in the kindness of her heart she 
would yield her consent. I had made arrangements, 
temporarily, as some of you possibly have done per¬ 
manently, to have my father-in-law take care of my 
wife and children, and all things were ready for the. 
trip. A short while before we were ready to start I 
stated in the presence of my mother: “Well, we are 
off soon for Europe.” She looked up and said: “ What 
is that, George?” I said: “We have everything 
ready, the trip is all organized, and we start for 
Europe soon.” Straightening up in her chair, she 
looked me straight in the face and said: “George, I 
told you once I did not want you to go. I have 
thought over this trip and prayed over it, and I can¬ 
not give my consent for you to go; and now I tell you 
so that you will understand it: You shall not go.” I 
said: “Mother, do not put it that way.” I tried to 
argue the question, saying: “ It is one of the sweetest 
hopes of my life that you are crushing.” She said: 
“ George, I have prayed over it; my mind is made up. 
We will not discuss it; you shall not go, and that set¬ 
tles it.” And when she said that I knew it did settle 
it, and surrendered what to me was one of the most 
pleasant hopes of my life. I hunted up my compan¬ 
ions and said: “I’m not in it.” They excitedly ex¬ 
claimed: “What's the matter?” I said: “Mother 
won't let me go.” They said: “ Are you not twenty- 
one, married and got children, and yet tied to your 
mother's apron strings?” I said: “ I would not cross 
the old Atlantic against my mother's wishes for a 
million dollars.” 

A few days later I got a letter from Brother Jones, 


THE CHRISTIAN HOME 


93 


asking me to accompany him on a trip to Canada. 
The following week we were plowing across Lake 
Ontario. It was a bright day. Brother Jones, wife, 
and I were sitting on the deck of the vessel, and as 
she plowed the blue waters I said: “This is glorious; 
how I wish it were on the Altantic, and I were headed 
for Europe. I shall always feel that mother was a 
little harsh in breaking up my European trip.” 
Brother Jones said, “Well, old boy, the whales might 
have gotten you in the Atlantic,” and we dropped the 
subject. On our return we were going in to the sup¬ 
per table at Buffalo, N. Y. Brother Jones bought the 
New York World . Just as we reached the dining¬ 
room door he said: “George, there has been a terrible 
railroad wreck at Thaxton, Va. My! what a list of the 
killed! ” Looking at the list, I saw “ Cleveland, Tenn.” 
I snatched the paper from his hand and read, while 
my blood ran cold: “John M. Hardwick, Cleveland, 
Tenn., killed and burned; William Marshall, Cleve¬ 
land, Tenn., killed and burned; Willie Steed, Cleve¬ 
land, Tenn., killed and burned.” I threw up my 
hands and said: “0 Sam, the next name would have 
been ‘ George R. Stuart, Cleveland, Tenn., killed and 
burned/ but for the authority of my precious mother!” 
I ran out to a bulletin board and found when the first 
train toward home was due. We turned from our 
journey and came immediately home. I found my 
little town gathered about the streets, and sadness 
resting like a cloud upon the whole town. As I 
walked up the street the mother of one of the boys, 
in whose home I had boarded in other days (she was 
almost as a mother to me), ran out on the streets and 
said: “0 George, if I only had the body of my pre- 


94 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


cious boy!” When I reached the gate I saw my 
mother come running; she threw her arms around me 
and said: “ Thank God! my boy is safe.” And I said: 
“Mother, I never missed it when I took your advice. 

I am sure I shall take it from this to the grave.” I 
found that I had never learned what God meant when 
he said: “Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy 
days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy 
God giveth thee.” Home authority has saved life 
and it has saved character and saved thousands of 
souls; for the lack of it the world is going to rot. But 
home authority is worth little without 

Home Example 

It is the nature of the child to follow. Did you 
ever start across the room, mother, and hear a thud 
on the floor, and look around to find that little Mary 
had caught your dress and attempted to follow you, 
and you had jerked her sprawling on the floor? 
Father, did you never, on reaching the gate on your 
departure from home, find little John at your heels, 
and as you closed the gate before him he looked up 
piteously and cried: “ Papa, let me go wid 'oo.” The 
children go with us—they follow us. How beautiful 
the sight to see father and mother walking in the ways 
of righteousness, followed by the large household of 
God! How horrible the sight to see the wicked 
father and mother start off to hell, and every little 
child following! How horrible to see them lead one 
at a time into that awful abyss, and there each recog¬ 
nize the other, and the parents realize that they led 
them there! Stop, my brother! Stop, my sister! Do 
not go farther in that direction with those precious 


THE CHRISTIAN HOME 95 

little ones following you. They look into your faces 
and ask the way. They see your tracks and follow. 

Sometime ago I heard a roar of laughter in the hall 
of my own home. I walked out of my study, and 
found the household laughing immoderately at my 
little boy, who was coming down the stairs dressed in 
a full suit of my clothing. He had tied a string around 
the buttons of my pants, and pulled the waistband close 
up under his arms, and rolled the pants up at the bot¬ 
tom. The vest reached to his knees, the long coat 
dragged the floor, the big hat almost hid his head, and 
his feet were lost in my number nine shoes. How 
comical, how funny it seemed to the family! but as I 
looked upon it I saw the serious side, and said: 
“ Wife, that is not a laughable picture to me. It has 
in it a lesson as touching as the great realities of life. 
That sight teaches me that the little boy wants to be 
like his father—wants to wear his father's shoes, walk 
as his father, dress in his father's clothes, and be 
as his father. God help me to go right!" I sent that 
boy, by the servant, to the gallery that morning 
and had his picture taken. That little picture is 
kept in my writing desk drawer, and every time I 
open that drawer that little picture talks to me and 
says: “Look out, papa; I'm following you." Every 
father who hears my voice to-night should not forget 
that there are scenes in your homes that talk to you 
every day and cry out to you as piteously as life and 
death: “Look out, papa; look out, mamma; I'm com¬ 
ing after you." Don't go wrong; don't lead little feet 
astray. 

A father coming into his home sometime ago heard 
his little boy and little girl quarreling as if they were 


96 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


going to fight. He said: “ Why, children, why are you 
quarreling so with each other?” The little boy smil¬ 
ingly replied: “Why, papa, we are not quarreling in 
earnest; we are just playing papa and mamma.” 
Those little fellows had heard something. If we 
watch our little fellows, we will see them playing 
papa and mamma in more ways than one. 

A Baptist minister told me of a little boy whom he 
had found in his rounds of pastoral visiting with his 
hair clipped close from the top of his head, presenting 
a most comical picture, which called for the following 
explanation by his mother: “This little follow got 
hold of my scissors yesterday and the first thing I 
knew he had clipped the hair off the top of his head, 
and when I asked him why he did it he replied with 
an air of victory: ‘ Make my head like papa's head . 9 ” 
His father was a bald-headed man. How often we 
find a boy's head like his father's head! Look out, 
skeptic. 

In one of Tennessee's cities a special friend of mine 
walked down to the Tennessee River with two bright, 
promising boys. He said: “ Boys, we will try a swim 
together.” And with his boys at his side they swam 
together out toward the current of the river. Away 
out in the current the father called a halt and advised 
a return, but as they turned to go back to the shore 
the waters proved too swift, the distance too great, 
and the two boys sank by his side. He swam to the 
shore, piteously crying: “My boys are gone.” He 
said: “The mistake I made was, I swam out too far 
with the boys.” I am talking to men who are swim¬ 
ming out into the current of social life and amuse¬ 
ments and dissipation with their bright boys at their 


THE CHRISTIAN HOME 


97 


side. Some of these days they will call a halt and 
start back to the shores of sobriety and piety; but 
the boys will be carried off with the current, and they 
will walk the shores of life sad and lonely, breathing 
from their broken hearts the saddest of all sentences: 
“My boys are gone! my boys are gone!” Stop, my 
brother; stop. Come back to God to-night. Bring 
those bright boys with you. Don’t go farther into 
the current of worldiness. 

An old local preacher in our Conference lived a life 
of simple piety and unquestionable honesty before a 
family of boys and girls. His sons have been honor¬ 
able. One of them, who has been to the United 
States Congress, gave this little incident to my pre¬ 
siding elder. He said: “I have never doubted my 
father’s piety. He has lived without reproach, a 
Christian life in his own home. But in spite of all 
teachings and example with which I have been so 
wonderfully blessed little doubts would still enter my 
mind. W hen my father came to his deathbed I said 
to myself: * Now is the time for me to settle some ques¬ 
tions/ I walked up to the bedside of my dying father 
and said: ‘Father, I know two things; you can tell 
me another, and these things will settle the problems 
of life/ My father said: * What are they, my son?’ I 
replied: ‘I know that you have been an honest man— 
you never told a story in your life. Secondly, I know 
you have practiced the teachings of the Christian 
religion as perfectly as man has ever followed his 
Christ. Now the question you can tell me is this: 
Is this religion all you hoped it would be in the hour of 
death? Has it in life and death proved a reality to 
you?’ My father looked up, a smile played over his 
7 


98 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


face, a tear of triumph filled his eye, and he replied: 
‘My son, I know whom I have trusted, and I am per¬ 
suaded that He is able to keep that which I have com¬ 
mitted to him against that day. Thank God, Chris¬ 
tianity was all that I could ask for in life, and more 
than I hoped it could be in the hour of death. I have 
lived a happy life and die a triumphant death. 
Thank God, there is a reality in the religion of 
Christ.’” The son said: “I walked away from the 
bedside of my dying father, and, so help me God, 
from that day to this not a shadow of doubt has ever 
found place in my mind. When I went to the United 
States Congress, among the first packages of my mail 
was a package containing the works of Colonel Inger- 
soll, with his compliments to me. I opened the pack¬ 
age. The very sight of those books brought up the 
smiling face and triumphant words of my dying 
father. I carried the books and dropped them into 
the grate and saw them burn to ashes. I washed my 
hands with soap and dried them on the towel, and 
that is as near as I have come to going back on the 
faith and life of my precious father.” This bit of 
history teaches us the power of godly example. 
Thank God for Christian parents whose lives are 
great beacon lights along the shore to guide us from 
the dangerous rocks into a haven of rest! 

While Sam Jones and I were preaching in Nashville 
I told this little incident. At the conclusion of my 
sermon a Methodist preacher came up and laid his 
hand upon my shoulder and said: “Brother Stuart, 
how your sermon to-day carried me back to my 
home! My father was a local preacher, and the best 
man I ever saw. He is gone to heaven now. We 


THE CHRISTIAN HOME 


99 


have a large family; mother is still at home, and I 
should like to see all the children together once more 
and have you come and dedicate our home to God, 
while we all rededicate ourselves to God before pre¬ 
cious old mother leaves us. If you will come with me, 
I will gather all the family together next Friday for 
that purpose.” I consented to go. The old home was 
a short distance from the city of Nashville. There 
were a large number of brothers and sisters. One was 
a farmer; one was a doctor; one was a real estate man; 
one was a bookkeeper; one was a preacher; and so on, 
so that they represented many professions of life'. \The 
preacher brother drove me out to the old home,'where 
all the children had gathered. As we drove up to the 
gate I saw the brothers standing in little groups about 
in the yard, whittling and talking. Did you never 
stand in the yard of the old home after an absence of 
many years, and entertain memories brought up by 
every beaten path and tree and gate and building 
about the old place? I was introduced to these noble¬ 
looking men, who, as the preacher brother told me, 
were all members of Churches, living consistent 
Christian lives, save the younger boy, who had 
wandered away a little, and the real object of this 
was to bring him back to God. 

The old mother was indescribably happy. There 
was a smile lingering in the wrinkles of her dear old 
face. We all gathered in the large old-fashioned fam¬ 
ily room in the old-fashioned semicircle, with mother 
in her natural place in the corner. The preacher 
brother laid the large family Bible in my lap and said: 
“Now, Brother Stuart, you are in the home of a Meth¬ 
odist preacher; do what you think best.” 


100 THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 

I replied: “ As I sit to-day in the family of a Meth¬ 
odist preacher, let us begin our service by an old- 
fashioned experience meeting. I want each child, in 
the order of your ages, to tell your experience.” 

The oldest arose and pointed his finger at the oil 
portrait of his father, hanging on the wall, and said 
in substance about as follows: “Brother Stuart, there 
is the picture of the best father God ever gave a 
family. Many a time he has taken me to his secret 
place of prayer, put his hand on my head, and prayed 
for his boy. And at every turn of my life, since he has 
left me, I have felt the pressure of his hand on my 
head, and have seen the tears upon his face, and I 
have heard the prayers from his trembling lips. I 
have not been as good a man since his death as I 
ought to have been, but I stand up here to-day to 
tell you and my brothers and sisters and my dear old 
mother that I am going to live a better life from this 
hour until I die. I will start my family altar again, 
and come back to father's life.” 

Overcome with emotion, he took his seat, and the 
children in order spoke on the same line. Each one 
referred to the place of secret prayer and the father's 
hand upon the head. At last we came to the young¬ 
est boy, who, with his face buried in his hands, was 
sobbing, and refused to speak. The preacher brother 
very pathetically said: “Buddy, say a word; there 
is no one here but the family, and it will help you.” 

He arose, holding to the back of his chair, looked 
upon me, and said: “Brother Stuart, they tell me 
that you have come to dedicate this home to God; 
but my dear old mother there has never let it get half 
an inch from God. They tell you that this meeting 


THE CHRISTIAN HOME 


101 


is called that my brothers and sisters may rededicate 
their lives to God, but they are good. I know them. 
I am the only black sheep in this flock. Every step 
I have wandered away from God and the life of my 
precious father, I have felt his hand upon my head 
and heard his blessed words of prayer. To-day I 
come back to God, back to my father's life; and so 
help me God, I will never wander away again." 

Following his talk came a burst of sobbing and 
shouting, and I started that old hymn, 

“Amazing grace! how sweet the sound, 

That saved a wretch like me!” 

and we had an old-fashioned Methodist class meet¬ 
ing, winding up with a shout. As I walked away from 
that old homestead I said in my heart: “It is the salt 
of a good life that saves the children." A boy never 
gets over the fact that he had a good father. 

Fathers and mothers, hear me to-night. Little 
children are looking up into your faces, asking which 
way to go. They are following your footsteps. Do 
not lead them wrong. God help you, stop to-night. 
Gather your little ones into your arms and turn your 
back on sin and your face toward God. While we 
sing, come and kneel at this altar and give your hearts 
to God, that you and your children may be saved. 







THE POWER OF A VIRTUOUS 
WOMAN 





THE POWER OF A VIRTUOUS WOMAN* 

“ Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above 
rubies .” (Proverbs xxxi. 10.) 

T HE author of my text has much to say about 
woman. No one has a better right to speak 
about woman than Solomon. The average 
man learns much from one wife, but Solomon had 
seven hundred. He had wives of the “Moabites, 
Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites. ,, 
(1 Kings xi. 1.) The text puts a high valuation upon 
the virtuous woman. The word “virtue” has a 
history. It has changed its meaning several times 
in its history. In one age of the world the word stood 
for courage. That was a virtuous character who took 
the sword and stood in the first line of battle. It is 
used in this sense by St. Peter when he says, “Add to 
your faith, virtue.” In another age of the world it 
meant honesty. That was a virtuous character who 
was upright, downright honest. In this age of the 
world it means purity or chastity. In every age of 
the world the word “virtue” has stood for the highest 
element of character, it has stood for the element of 
greatest strength. My text could properly be read, 
“Who can find a strong woman? for her price is far 
above rubies.” The ruby is one of the most precious 
of all gems, one of the most precious things of its size 


’'This sermon was delivered in the Armory at Toledo, Ohio, 
before a great audience during the course of a Jones-Stuart 
meeting held there. 


( 105 ) 



106 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


upon earth. At the time of the text it was regarded 
by some as being even more precious than the dia¬ 
mond itself. Here then is my text: “ Who can find a 
strong woman? For when you have found her, you 
have found the best thing of her size upon the earth.” 
A good woman is the best thing this side of heaven; 
a bad woman is the worst thing this side of the pit. 
A woman touches the limit both ways; she rises high¬ 
er, and falls lower, than man. The most degraded 
human being on earth to-day is woman; the purest 
character on earth to-day is woman. Woman blesses 
or curses everything she touches. 

Incipient Rome rotted for want of women; imperial 
Rome rotted on account of her fast women. The 
stage and the ballroom never cursed the world till 
woman cursed them. 

A town never falls below its worst woman; never 
rises higher than its best woman. The homes of your 
town are on a level with your women, and your town 
is on a level with your homes. Nothing can hurt 
woman like sin, and nothing can destroy sin like 
woman. Christ and woman can save the world; the 
devil and woman can damn it. The devil attacked 
the world first through woman; the Redeemer of the 
world came as the seed of the woman. Woman seems 
to be the battle ground for all good and evil forces. 
The women of our country will settle the destiny of 
our country morally and religiously. No wonder it is 
said that “the price of a strong woman is beyond the 
value of rubies.” 

The author of my text gives us a life size-portrait 
of this strong woman. It is an old-fashioned picture: 
a picture that will call up to many a noble boy the 


THE POWER OF A VIRTUOUS WOMAN 107 

woman at home that he calls mother, a picture that 
recalls to many a man the woman he delights to call 
his wife. It is not a picture of the gay, thoughtless, 
fashionable society belle, sacrificing home, husband, 
children, and all the blessings of home to the endless 
round of giddy social pleasures; but this picture is a 
picture of the strong woman. Look at it a moment. 
The first verse following my text is this: “The heart 
of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he 
shall have no need of spoil.” It is a sad day in any 
home when the husband cannot trust every look, 
every word, every act of his wife. The loss of confi¬ 
dence at this point means the wreck of home, wreck 
of character, wreck of life. What a coloring those 
four words (“safely trust in her”) give to this picture! 
But the brush of the painter touches the canvas 
again: “She will do him good and not evil all the days 
of her life.” She will go with him to good places; 
she will surround him with good circumstances; all 
of her words and deed will minister good. She 
stands strong against the appeals from worldly 
amusement, from foolish extravagances. 

She stands for the right and against the wrong: 
“To do him good and not evil.” Again the brush 
touches the canvas. “She riseth also while it is yet 
night and giveth meat to her household, and a por¬ 
tion to her maidens.” She is an early riser, a home 
organizer, a home systematizer. By the time the 
sun has made the morning gray with his light, she has 
given meat to her household and a portion to her 
maidens. Breakfast is over and every maid about 
the household is busy with her portion. Such a 
woman in the home gives system and order, prompt- 


108 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


ness and dispatch, not only to all work of the house, 
but it becomes a part of her character in the home. 

It does not stop with a systematic household, but 
the system of such a home goes out to the shop, and 
to the office, and to the world. The brush touches 
the canvas again. “ She considereth a field, and buy- 
eth it; with the fruit of her hands she planeth a vine¬ 
yard.” A wonderful figure of common sense. Many 
a home has been wrecked in fortune by an indiscreet 
and extravagant woman. Again the brush touches 
the canvas. “She perceiveth that her merchandise 
is good: her candle goeth not out by night.” A 
graphic figure of honesty and sincerity. How insin¬ 
cere, how full of shame, how full of deception, is the 
female character to-day. There sits a woman with 
the appearance of luxuriant hair falling in flowing 
bangs about her forehead, but I do not know whether 
it is confined to her head by nature or pinned on by 
hairpins. Over there sits a lady with beautiful rosy 
cheeks, but I do not know whether they came from a 
ruddy blood careering through her healthful system, 
or whether she got it out of a little box on the bureau. 
There sits a lady with a set of beautiful ivory-looking 
teeth, snowy white through her ruby lips. I don’t 
know whether they rest in her gums or on her gums. 
A woman’s hair, teeth, lips, and cheeks are not more 
treacherous than her tongue. 0 the insincerity of 
society’s tongue—the insincere praise and flattery 
and condemnation! An honest woman—a sincere 
woman. It is safe to invest to her merchandise. It 
is safe to buy a candle from her. The brush touches 
the canvas again. “She layeth her hand to the 
spindle, and her hands hold a distaff.” That is 


THE POWER OF A VIRTUOUS WOMAN 109 


beautiful figure of plain industry. A proverb says 
that the “idle brain is the devil's workshop." His 
tools are “idle hands" and “idle feet." I believe it 
is a crime to be idle, however rich you may be. An 
idle woman will get into mischief. The curse of 
our age is the fact that our wealth and competency 
are rearing our girls in idleness and laziness. In¬ 
dustry is God's great preserving force, is God's great 
conserving force. It brings health to body and mind 
and soul. 


Industrious Woman. 

But the brush touches the canvas again. “She 
stretcheth out her hand to the poor, yea, she reacheth 
forth her hands to the needy." She is a charitable 
woman. God put a gentle hand on a woman's 
wrist. No hand can give loving ministries in the 
sick room like a woman's hand. There is no 
tread like to the soft tread of a woman in the sick 
room. There is no voice so low and soft and sweet 
as a woman's. What an angel of mercy is a good 
woman in a sick room! When ,the world is so full of 
sorrow, so full of sickness and distress, what a pity 
that woman's voice and strength and energies should 
be wasted in foolish, frivolous, giddy pleasures. 
O woman, stretch out your hand to the poor and 
reach forth your hand to the needy. Again the brush 
touches the canvas. “She is not afraid of the snow 
for her household: for all of her household are clothed 
with scarlet." Nowhere can a mother's character be 
seen more beautiful than in the clothing of her 
children. I have looked often upon the children of 
the home and read of a mother's love and a mother's 


110 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


care in every little garment. I have gone into other 
homes and read in the hieroglyphics of the unkempt 
hair, the unbuttoned sleeve, ripped coat, and the torn 
dress, the sad language: “Mother is not here.” 

I dropped in to see a sick family some years ago, 
and a little unwashed, unkempt lad stepped into the 
room. The old gentleman said: “Excuse this little 
boy; his mother is dead and his grandmother sick, 
and I am a poor hand to care for children.” His 
explanation was unnecessary. I read in the little un¬ 
buttoned sleeve, waist detached from the pants, the 
unfastened collar, and dangling shoestrings, the sad¬ 
dest language ever revealed in the person of a little 
child, “ Mother is not here.” How I love to see a 
motherly mother! 

But the brush touches the canvas again. “She 
maketh herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is 
silk and purple.” At the time my text was written 
silk and purple were the most substantial articles of 
clothing, corresponding to our flannels and linsey of 
this day and time. She was substantially dressed. 
She was neatly dressed. Many a woman has won her 
husband's love in her brightest gown and lost it in the 
shabby dress. It is hard to love through filth. But 
the brush touches the canvas again. “ Her husband 
is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the 
elders of the land.” Not only strong and substan¬ 
tially dressed herself, not only with her children 
strong and substantially dressed about her, but her 
husband is known wherever he is seen. There is 
projectile force enough in this character to place her 
husband among the elders of the land. God only 
knows how many men have been elevated by their 


THE POWER OF A VIRTUOUS WOMAN 111 


wives; God only knows how many have been dragged 
down. But the most important touch of the brush 
is now to be made. “She openeth her mouth with 
wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness." 

The mouth of a woman is an important feature. So 
much has been said of a woman's mouth that I touch 
the subject with a degree of hesitation. I handle a 
woman's mouth like I handle a loaded pistol. You 
never know when it is going off. But here is a mouth 
that I like. This mouth works on a mainspring called 
wisdom. And it never moves till wisdom moves it. 
“And in her tongue is the law of kindness." I have 
known many kind tongues, many women who said 
kind things sometimes and at other times could say 
very bitter things: sometimes speak softly, some¬ 
times speak harshly; sometimes praise, sometimes 
criticize; sometimes win you by gentle words, some¬ 
times skin you with harsh ones. But in this tongue 
there is a law. The law is not on the tongue, nor 
around the tongue; but the law is in it, and every time 
this tongue moves it moves to the law, and that law is 
kindness. Unkindness has no control over this 
tongue. It has but one law, and that law is the law of 
kindness, and every word is a kind word. I love a 
kind tongue, kind to her husband, kind to the chil¬ 
dren, kind to her friends, and kind to her enemies. 
This is the law of kindness. 

Again the brush touches the canvas. “ She looketh 
well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the 
bread of idleness." She industriously looks after her 
children. She knows where her children go, how long 
they stay, and what they do. It was not her girl you 
saw out on the street with that dude after midnight, 


112 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


the other night, returning from the opera." It was 
not her girl that you saw taking a moonlight buggy 
ride with that young man. It was not her girl that 
you saw encircled in the arms of that lecherous 
youth, whirling on the ballroom floor. It was not 
her boy you saw on the streets at night. It was 
not her boy you saw in the clubroom at the card 
table. The curse of our land to-day is that our 
mothers do not look to the ways of their children. 

The picture is done. The next verses are the com¬ 
ments on the picture. “ Her children arise up, and call 
her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her. 
Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou ex- 
cellest them all.” Ah, how could a boy refrain from 
praising a mother like that? How could a husband 
keep from praising a wife like that? I am sometimes 
criticized for my frequent reference to my mother and 
my wife, but he who has such a mother and such a 
wife as I cannot keep from speaking of them. “Her 
children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband 
also, and he praiseth her.” 

What a wonderful picture this! It is the very 
picture of the strong woman. It is the picture of the 
woman who is a blessing to her home, a blessing to 
her children, a blessing to her husband, and a blessing 
to the world—a picture of a strong woman. The 
author of this picture gives in the next verse of three 
lines a picture of the fashionable, worldly woman. 
Look at the picture a moment. Here it is: “Favor is 
deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that fear-^ 
eth the Lord, she shall be praised. Give her of the 
fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her 
in the gates.” Two lines finish the picture of the 


THE POWER OF A VIRTUOUS WOMAN 113 

worldly woman. “ Grace and beauty, her stock in 
trade.” Her every thought circles and centers 
around her grace and beauty. The great painter 
made this picture with one stroke of the brush, then 
drew another woman in the words, “But a woman 
that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.” 

Let us go back to this picture of the strong woman. 
No one ever took one look at a beautiful woman that 
did not desire to take a second. No one ever came 
into contact with a beautiful character that did not 
long in his heart to see that character again. We turn 
to a beautiful woman in the highest sense: beautiful 
in character, beautiful in soul, beautiful in life, beauti¬ 
ful in the home, strong in her body. Amid the pale 
faces, shrunken cheeks, and fragile forms that sur¬ 
round us on every side, it is a tonic to look at an 
absolutely healthy woman. Some time ago I said to 
a doctor: “Where are our healthy women; where are 
the round, plump faces; where are the roses on the 
cheeks; where are the dimpled cheeks, dimpled hands; 
where are the healthy women? ” He replied: “ Stuart, 
Madam Fashion has ruined the lives and health of 
our women. She has stolen the rose from her cheek, 
the dimple from her chin, the sparkle from her eye, 
the plumpness from her figure. Our women have 
sacrificed the brightest and best things of womanhood 
to the frivolities of fashion.” 

I speak this hour to an audience of 4,000 women. 
Possibly there are scarcely 200 absolutely healthy 
women among them all. These infirmities run back 
through three or four generations and many run back 
to the frivolities of fashion and society. I pray God 
that the day may soon come when the sensible 
8 


114 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


womanhood of this country will rise up and put 
down all these forms of dress that are not con¬ 
ducive to health and modesty. Strong in her life! 
Another look at the picture brings out another won¬ 
derfully attractive feature: Strong in her dress. I 
have not time to deal with the fashion plates of the 
day. The truth is, I do not care so much how a wom¬ 
an dresses, provided she dresses with an eye single to 
health and modesty. 

I do not care how big you may make your sleeves. 
I do not care so much how you make your collars, 
just so you have collars. I like to see woman dressed 
up—all the way up. It is queer that woman, upon 
whom modesty's blush has its natural home, should 
become the leader of immodesty. Women are more 
immodest than men. Did you ever stop five minutes 
and go to the bottom of the thought in which the 
decollete was born? Did it ever occur to you that she 
who wears a decollete is lacking in genuine modesty? 
I stopped in a city some time ago and met in the 
hotel parlors a lady who had been reared in my 
neighborhood and in modest circumstances, but had 
married rich and moved to the city. She was soon 
lost in the giddy rounds of social life. Her grown 
daughter had been turned over to society with all 
that that means. After expressing her surprise at 
meeting me in the city, she asked me to wait for a 
few moments and see her daughter. 

Soon the elevator stopped, and an airy-fairy-like 
creature stepped off. I was introduced to her. She 
made her little conventional society bow, and in a 
very artistic way stretched out her little kid-gloved 
hand; but I was almost afraid to shake hands with her 


THE POWER OF A VIRTUOUS WOMAN 115 

for fear that I would break her. The mother stood 
half between a grin and a smile, looking upon her 
fairy little creature, fit for nothing in the world but 
to be slung around the ballroom by some dude, im¬ 
patiently waiting for my comments, which I did not 
make. At last she asked her daughter to remove a 
little silk shawl thrown around her shoulder and 
show me her beautiful ballroom dress. When she 
removed her shawl I was very much embarrassed, for 
I thought she had made a mistake and taken off 
more than she intended to. But I soon saw from the 
complacent smile of the mother and the native brass 
of the girl that what they were pleased to call her 
beautiful ballroom dress consisted mostly of skirts. 
I speak candidly when I say that, reared as I have 
been reared, it seemed to me that the proper thing 
for any modest man to do was to turn his back upon 
that scene and walk off from it. She was not rigged 
up for the eye of modesty. I don't blame sweet girls. 
There is not a sixteen-year-old girl in the land that 
has sense enough to take care of herself, and that is 
why God gave her a mother; but I do blame these 
mothers who thus expose their pure, sweet girls to 
the immoral gaze of the average young man of this 
country. As I walk through the streets of your city 
and look upon the billboard advertisements of your 
theaters and operas, as I stop to look at the costumes 
of the women and ask the honest question, “ Why was 
that woman put in that picture just in that position 
and with that costume?" the inevitable answer must 
come to every candid honest man and woman, “The 
motive was bad." It is a bid for the worst thoughts, 
and its influence is not for the best. When I see an 


116 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


advertisement of tobacco, and almost every other 
commodity of trade, the nude forms of women, my 
cheeks burn and my heart aches. But in answer to 
my criticism comes back the fact that no woman was 
ever pictured in a garb that she did not wear; and, 
after all, the women of the land are responsible for 
this fearful, shocking nudity of the female form 
flooding our towns, our theaters, our operas, and our 
social gatherings. Has woman lost her modesty? 
Are we utterly given over to immodesty? I pray you 
good women to whom God Almighty has intrusted 
the rearing of sweet girls, call a halt to this infernal 
immodesty of dress. Lend not your girls to this 
school of lust. Give not the arms and neck and 
shoulders of your sweet girls to feed the passions of 
the voluptuous vultures that attend all these gather¬ 
ings chiefly to feed upon the weaknesses and follies 
of our women. 

I warn you, young women, study your costume a 
little. Ask why Madam Fashion would array you 
thus, and then in the strength of your pure, modest 
womanhood dare to have the courage to draw the 
line on old Madam Fashion where modesty stops and 
immodesty begins. A strong woman means a woman 
who makes some demands upon the opposite sex. A 
man has drawn a line for women, he has made de¬ 
mands upon her character; and whenever a woman 
crosses the line that man has drawn for her, or falls 
below the standard man has erected for her, she is 
picked up on the cold iron shovel of ostracism and 
thrown out into the cold, heartless world: then the 
devil puts his foot on her and she never rises. 0, the 
fruitless efforts of the good people of this country to 


THE POWER OF A VIRTUOUS WOMAN 117 

lift up fallen women! 0, the rigidness with which she 
is held to the demands that man makes for her purity 
and her uprightness! But the women of this country 
make no demands upon the men. A young man, 
provided he has a hundred thousand dollars back of 
him, can wallow in the slums, debauch himself in the 
saloon, go to the unnamable haunts of sin, until every 
element of his character is reeking in immorality; yet, 
dressed in his elegant costume, with the breath of 
the richest perfume about his clothing, he is received 
like a prince into the best homes of this country, and 
is considered an honored escort for our brightest and 
purest young women. I say, down with such a cus¬ 
tom. God grant that the day may speedily come 
when our girls will think as much of themselves as 
the boys think of themselves, when a girl will stand 
at her parlor door and demand of the young man who 
enters that as her company he shall be as clean in his 
life as he demands that she shall be. 

In one of our Tennessee homes there lived a bright, 
cultured young woman, who put a womanly pre¬ 
mium upon her own life and her society. A brilliant 
young lawyer was paying court at her shrine. He 
was young and bright and strictly moral, though not 
religious. He had won her love and gained her con¬ 
sent to her marriage. During the Christmas holi¬ 
days, with a company of reckless companions, in an 
unusually hilarious moment, he was persuaded to 
take wine. Ignorant of the treacherous drink, he was 
soon intoxicated, and to the delight of his envious 
companions he was carried to his room drunk. The 
news was carried to his young lady friend, who retired 
to her room, buried her face in h^r hand, fought a 


118 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


battle, and gained a victory. Late in the evening of 
the next day this young man rang the doorbell at her 
father's residence. She saw him coming and told 
the servant that she would answer the bell. She 
opened the door and said to him: “I have heard of 
your last night's conduct. You have taken my 
name and our relations into disgrace. You have 
shown your appreciation and your estimation of me. 
I cannot receive the attentions of a man who values 
so lightly his own character and mine. You may go 
back to your companions, and be my friend no longer. 
Our roads separate here. Good-by, sir." She closed 
the door and walked back into the kihgdom of her 
own home, with the feeling that she would not trust 
her life and happiness with a man who valued them 
no higher than the young man she had just turned 
from the door. If we had a few young women in this 
country who would put some valuation on their own 
character and their own person, and would make 
more demands on the opposite sex, the young men of 
this country would soon purify their lives, elevate 
their characters, and be worthy of our noble young 
womanhood, and there would be fewer ruined homes, 
crushed hearts and lives. We need young women 
strong in their demands on the opposite sex. Again, 
a strong woman must have a worthy ambition. I 
spent several years of my life in a female college. 
Young women came from what were recognized as 
the best homes of our country. And year after year I 
looked for young ladies with worthy ambitions. The 
average schoolgirl from the average home has no 
ambition of her own but to be a pretty, graceful, airy 
young miss with two or three dudes contesting for her 


THE POWER OF A VIRTUOUS WOMAN 119 

favors. How I have longed to see a young girl with 
ambition to make a woman—a right, strong, cultured 
woman. 

How many thoroughly educated women in this 
audience? How many women of broad culture? 
How many young women with an ambition to be 
anything more than a society belle? And, you know 
what it takes to be a belle, don't you. It takes a little 
brass and a tongue. I have said it all over this coun¬ 
try that any young woman can be thoroughly edu¬ 
cated who wishes to be, whatever may be her cir¬ 
cumstances in life. I said this in a Tennessee town, 
and after my talk a young girl called at the house 
where I was stopping and asked to see me. She said: 
“Sir, you made a proposition to-day which I desire 
to test. You said that any young girl could secure 
an education if she wanted it. I have come for your 
rule." I saw from the strength of her eye, and the 
determination pictured in her face that she meant 
business. I said to her: “Make home folks of me for 
a little while and tell me your exact condition, that 
I may advise you. Has your father any property?" 
She replied: “No sir; he is a poor renter." “Have 
you any brothers succeeding in business?" She re¬ 
plied: “I have but one, who is a poor man." I said: 
“Have you any relatives who have any money?" 
She replied: “None that I know of." I saw that I had 
a problem. I asked again: “Have you availed your¬ 
self of the privileges of the public school?" She re¬ 
plied: “I am glad to tell you, sir, that I have gone 
through the public school course, and have taken the 
highest grade every session." I then said: “A girl 
who will take what she can get will appreciate what 


120 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


you give her. I have a plan by which you can suc¬ 
ceed. Will you take it? " She replied: “ If it is honor¬ 
able, I will.” I said: “I will secure for you a school 
to teach in the country. You can board around 
among the people and save your board. You can 
work night and morning and make yourself useful. 
Don't spend a single dollar of your money. You can 
afford to wear a faded frock for a little while, in order 
that you may wear what you please for the future. 
You can afford to wear an old hat for a little season, 
in order that you may wear what you please for all 
the future, and be a woman with a magnificent wom¬ 
anhood." She replied: “ Get me the school, sir, and I 
will do as you say." I said to her: “When your 
school is out, write me at Centenary Female College, 
Cleveland, Tenn., and I will give you further advice." 
Early the next fall I received a letter stating that her 
school was out, she had not spent a dollar of her 
money, and that she had eighty dollars. I wrote her 
to bring her eighty dollars and come to Centenary 
College. I met her at the train, introduced her to the 
faculty, and said to the treasurer: “Put my name op¬ 
posite the name of this young lady, give her credit for 
her eighty dollars, furnish her such spending money 
as she is compelled to have, and charge up her bal¬ 
ance to me." She entered the college course and was 
soon prominent in her class, was soon prominent as 
the most worthy young lady of the school, and ex¬ 
erted a sweet Christian influence everywhere. A few 
years passed, during which she taught in the summer 
and attended school in the fall and winter. At last 
the day for her graduation came. I saw from the 
record that she had won three of the gold medals and 


THE POWER OF A VIRTUOUS WOMAN 121 


was the valedictorian of her class. As she stood on 
the platform on commencement day and read her 
valedictory, I saw the great audience moved. After 
her graduation she secured a position, refunded every 
dollar of the money, and to-day is one of the first 
young women of our country, exerting an influence 
in the social circle, in church work, and in home life, 
and I never hear of her work that I don't say, “ Thank 
God for a young girl that has ambition—ambition to 
be somebody, ambition to attain something.” 

Again. A strong woman must be strong in piety. 
I believe God gave a woman stronger religious en¬ 
dowment than he gave to man. I believe he gave 
this endowment for a great purpose. The two lead¬ 
ing elements of our religion are faith and love. I 
believe that a woman has naturally more faith and 
more love than man. She who was last at the Cross 
and first at the Sepulcher believes in the ultimate 
triumph of the right. If I should select the most 
striking example of faith in the Bible, I would not 
take Abraham, to whom God talked so long; but I 
would take the woman who, pressing her way through 
the throng, touched the hem of the Saviour's gar¬ 
ment with the tip of her finger. 

The good women of the Church are always first to 
take up the work and last to lay it down. They rely 
with a hopefulness of ultimate triumph, where the 
heart of man fails him. Some time ago, after I had 
worked until my faith and patience had given out in 
trying to rescue the son of a widow, I at last made up 
my mind that the thing to do, since we could not 
save the boy, was to divert the mother's attention 
from him—turn her affections from him to her other 


122 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


loving and dutiful children. I visited her one day and 
suggested to her that, since the boy did not love her 
and was trampling her heart beneath the iron heel of 
dissipation, she turn to her other children, who loved 
her, and let the reckless boy go his way. 

She leaped to her feet, looked at me like a lioness 
(infuriated), and said: “What do you mean, sir? 
Since the world has turned against my boy, nobody 
loves him, and everybody has turned the cold shoul¬ 
der to him, do you mean to come and turn his mother's 
love from him? Sir, you will never do that. I love 
my precious boy and I will never give him up. And 
God will save him, and some day you will see, too." 
Staggered at her faith, I said mechanically, “I hope 
so," and turned away. But that mother's faith clung 
to God and to that wayward boy until I lived to see 
the boy brightly converted to God, and he became a 
joy and comfort to his mother. Thank God for a 
mother's faith! How oft it has saved a wayward 
boy! How many a wife is to-day clinging on to God, 
in the midst of the dark and gloomy life, for a godless 
husband or a dissipated husband! For ten years he 
has gone the downward way; for ten years wife's 
faith and prayer have followed him. Who ever heard 
of a man's faith and prayer following a wayward 
wife? The very moment she steps from the path of 
rectitude the husband rushes to the courthouse to get 
the devil's scissors, called a divorce, to separate him 
from the wicked woman. 

But there never comes a day in the life of a faithful 
wife that she does not follow the downward steps of 
her husband, crying in the loneliness of her cheerless 
home, “Lord, save my husband.". A woman's faith 


THE POWER OF A VIRTUOUS WOMAN 123 

—there is no end to it. I need not argue the fact that 
a woman has stronger love than man. There are ex¬ 
amples in your own experience. 

Some years ago the only son of an indulgent home 
had received every blessing that a kind father and a 
loving mother could bestow. He had been educated 
at the best schools and had received every luxury of 
life, but he began to drink. And through his years of 
dissipation he bled the hearts of his parents, disgraced 
the home, spurned every loving advice, and walked 
roughshod over them. At last the father, exasperated 
and discouraged, said to his wife: “I have done every¬ 
thing that an indulgent father could do. The way¬ 
ward boy has crushed all the feeling out of my heart. 
He shall not disgrace us any longer. He shall never 
enter this home again.” Just then the staggering 
form of the boy was seen to enter the front gate. His 
father met him at the door, and with a stern voice 
and a firm hand he turned him around and said: “Get 
off these premises, and never come here again.” But 
the mother ran to him, threw her arms around his 
neck, kissed his bloated lips and face, and said: “No, 
no, my precious boy. You shall never leave this home 
till mother leaves. You shall have a place in moth¬ 
er's room as long as mother has a place.” With her 
arms around his neck she led him into the house, back 
into the dining room, prepared a nice warm meal, 
ever and anon stooping to kiss his bloated face, talk¬ 
ing and saying to him over and over again: “Mother 
loves you, my precious boy. You shall never leave 
this house until mother leaves.” 0 the love of a 
mother! How it has followed the wayward boy to the 
gates of hell! 0 the love of a wife! How it has fol- 


124 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


lowed a wayward husband to the very depths of deg¬ 
radation! Thank God for a woman’s love—the 
highest, brightest, deepest emotion that ever engaged 
a human heart! But why did God give a woman this 
endowment of faith and love? The whole world 
starts at mother’s feet. Every little child plays on 
mother’s slippers, puts his arms around mother’s 
neck, and drinks from mother’s heart and life, her 
faith and love. God desired to give the old world a 
good start; and knowing a mother’s love to be the 
fountain of all love, richly endowed her with faith and 
love so that she might put it down into the infant’s 
heart and life. 

How I remember the first sweet lessons of love and 
faith I learned from my precious mother! How glad 
I am that God gave to this old world the blessing of a 
Christian mother! How glad I am that he made wom¬ 
an’s heart the great storehouse of love and faith from 
which every little infant may draw its rich supplies! 
Woman’s faith and woman’s love—what an endow¬ 
ment, what a responsibility! A woman who will take 
this high endowment bestowed upon her by the hand 
of God himself, and turn it over to the use of the 
devil by worldly, sinful living, commits a crime un¬ 
equaled in the great dark catalogue of sin. I believe 
that the irreligious woman in Christian America is the 
greatest monstrosity that our civilization produces. 
When we consider what Christianity has done for 
woman, what Christianity will do for woman; when 
we consider woman’s endowments from her Heavenly 
Father, woman’s sphere and woman’s work, and then 
think of a woman turning her back upon God and 
surrendering herself to the devil, it is enough to make 


THE POWER OF A VIRTUOUS WOMAN <125 

the devil himself shudder. A woman who does not 
love Christ, and give him room in her heart and home, 
displays the most inhuman ingratitude and the most 
unpardonable ignorance. Let me illustrate her in¬ 
gratitude. 

Some years ago I received this incident from a 
lady with whom I boarded in a little Tennessee town. 
A fine-looking gentleman stopped one day for dinner 
with us, and before we went in to dinner the lady 
gave me the following little sketch of history. She 
said: “That young man’s father lived adjoining farms 
to my father. They moved into the settlement about 
the same time, and registered Government lands. 
There was but one child in the home, and he was 
that one. His father and mother were hard-working 
people and accumulated property. They educated 
that young man for a physician. Several years ago, 
when the father came to his dying bed, the boy was 
off at college. The father sent for his lawyer to make 
his will, and he said to the lawyer: ‘It will take but a 
few sentences to write my will. Give everything to 
my wife. She has helped me make it/ The wife 
interposed, saying, ‘No, husband, I will not be here 
long myself, and you know we want our son to have 
this property. Let the lawyer make it out to him, 
and what few days I remain I will enjoy it with him/ 
And thus the entire estate was, by the will of the 
father, given to the young man. After his graduation 
he married a fashionable young woman and brought 
her to the old home place. He renovated and modern¬ 
ized the old home against the protests of the mother, 
who was attached to everything about the place. She 
was given a retired room in the house, with orders to 


126 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


keep her mouth out of the affairs of the household, 
and to have nothing to do with anything. It was not 
long until this young wife became restive under sug¬ 
gestions of this economical old mother. She, who had 
worked so hard to accumulate the property, did not 
wish to see it wasted. Finally the test came. The 
young wife said to her husband: ‘Either I or your old 
mother must leave/ And the son drove the old moth¬ 
er from the home.” The lady said: “I remember the 
day she came over to my father's house, stating that 
she had been driven from her home. I saw the old 
woman weep, and I thought of the heartless wretch 
that could do a thing like that. The old woman died 
in our home, and was buried, and that young man 
enjoyed the estate that they had accumulated." 

When I sat down at the dinner table with that 
young man, I felt like stamping him through the 
floor. I could hardly conceive how a man could be 
such a villainous ingrate as to take all these blessings 
at the hands of his father and mother, and then stand 
on the very steps of the home that his mother had 
given him and drive her off. 0, the ingrate! It 
makes my blood fairly boil to think of it. But, wom¬ 
an, will you hear the parallel? I heard, a short time 
ago, a man who had traveled the world over, say that 
he would defy any one to produce a single square mile 
on the face of this earth where Jesus Christ had not 
been preached and woman was not an abject slave. 
Christ came to enslaved woman, and with his own 
hands he wrought out for her her beautiful Christian 
home, and sealed the deed to it with drops of blood 
from his own dying body. 

There is not a woman in this great audience who is 


THE POWER OF A VIRTUOUS WOMAN 127 


queen of a beautiful home in this Christian land to¬ 
day that does not possess it as a gift of the blood and 
suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ; and if she then 
stands on the marble steps of her beautiful home and 
drives her precious Saviour from that home, and re¬ 
ceives the card table and the dance and worldliness 
and sin, she is ten thousand times more an ingrate 
than the man who drove his precious mother from 
the home. 0 woman, to whom every blessing is a 
gift from the bleeding hands of the precious Christ, 
throw wide your door, let the blessed Master in, and 
drive out of your home every influence that would 
hurt the Saviour. But not only is the woman an 
ingrate who is not a Christian, but she is ignorant of 
her own happiness. No sorrow ever came to a wom¬ 
an that sin did not bring. Go through the homes of 
this land to-day, go through the hearts of the women 
of this land, and their ruined homes and ruined hearts 
are the result of sin. And the devil rarely captures a 
woman that he does not make her his perpetual slave. 

How little we think of the blessings of Christianity, 
and of our homes and of our life! Some years ago a 
father stepped from his own door on his way to a 
temperance meeting in the streets of his town. A 
beautiful young girl kissed him good-night. She said: 
“Papa, where are you going?” He replied: “I am 
going out to save some of our boys.” And with a 
careless smile she said: “Save me a nice one.” He 
walked off the steps, saying in his heart: “That pre¬ 
cious child is not conscious of the request she has 
made. Save my precious innocent child from a drunk¬ 
en husband and a drunken home.” That night, as 
he stood on the street and made his speech, a young 


128 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


man, passing the crowd, stopped and heard half a 
dozen sentences of the speaker, one of which was this: 
“ Young man, hear the advice of an old man. You 
may carry strong drink for a little while, but sooner 
or later it will get you down.” The young man 
moved on, saying to himself: “That old man has told 
the truth. I was intoxicated the other night, and I 
never expected to get under the influence of liquor. 
I had better quit.” Stopping there, silently and 
alone, he brought his face down into the palm of his 
hand, and said: “So help me God, I am done.” Years 
passed away. The cashier of a bank was seated with 
his wife on the front porch of their beautiful city 
residence. Two little children were running to and 
fro in the green grass of the beautiful front yard when 
a drunkard came staggering down the street, holding 
to the palings. The young wife said: “0 Charley, 
what would I do if you should come staggering home 
drunk like that some day?” He replied: “Annie, I 
believe I never told you what made me give up drink. ” 
And he recalled to her the incident of the young man 
who had heard the old man make his temperance 
speech. It was Annie's father that made the talk 
and Annie's husband that heard it; and that night 
when she looked up into her father's face and said, 
“Save me one,” little did she think that that hour 
would be the hour in her father's life that would bring 
her a happy, temperate home. Ah, no woman knows 
where sin will cross her path. 

No woman knows where Christianity will bless her 
life. But remember this: nothing but Christianity 
can help you and nothing but sin can hurt you. And 
a woman who turns Christ from her heart and home 


THE POWER OF A VIRTUOUS WOMAN 129 

and life is ignorant of her own happiness—she dis¬ 
plays the greatest weakness of her sex. But she who 
receives Christ into her heart and home and life re¬ 
ceives the strength that towers above all other elements 
of strength. Truly, a strong woman is one that feareth 
the Lord. A woman who is strong in body, strong in 
dress, strong in her demands on the opposite sex, 
strong in her ambition, strong in her piety, becomes 
the strong woman her children shall call blessed and 
whom her husband shall praise. It is this woman 
who will stand in society as a great tower of strength, 
whose influence will sweeten the lives of all about her. 
A woman whose hand is stretched out to the needy 
will make this sorrowing world smile—a woman with 
her hand stretched out to the poor and helpless, a 
woman in whom the husband can safely trust, and 
in whom the children have a mother, the influence of 
whose life shall share their destiny. 

The most hopeless boy I ever met in all my work 
was a boy without a mother—the poor fellow who, 
receiving the sentence, when asked if he knew any 
reason why sentence should not be passed upon him, 
dropped his head as the tears flowed down his cheek, 
and said: “0 Judge, if I had had a mother! If I had 
had a mother! If I had had a mother !” 

In all the wrecks of human character that we have 
found along our pathway no sadder one have we ever 
found than the poor man who says, “My home is 
wrecked.” Some years ago, in a neat little cottage 
in a Southern city there lived an honest, faithful labor¬ 
ing man, a railroad man. He had two sweet little 
children and, as he thought, a noble wife! His little 
home was happy; he was contented, and his bank 
9 


130 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


account was constantly increasing. One day some 
one whispered in his ear something about his home. 
He said: “ It is a lie. My wife is as pure as an angel/' 
But again a friend whispered in his ear, and another. 
Returning to his little home at an unexpected hour 
one night, his grave suspicions were turned into awful 
facts. Mortified, enraged, he was no longer the same 
man. One night he took that wife and those two 
sweet little children to the lake in one of our neigh¬ 
boring towns, tied weights to their necks, and pushed 
them off into the lake. I have seen him in the clear 
star-light night push the pleading little girl from his 
bosom; and looking upon her lips bubbling in the 
water, as he pushed them under, I have said: “0, 
what a demon! 0, what a demon!” But I go back of 
that hour and see how sad the fact that made him the 
demon. 

The women of our country make or ruin our homes. 
Many a young girl has led her precious brother out 
into influences that grabbed and doomed him. Many 
a wife has brought her own precious husband into 
circumstances that have ruined him and ruined the 
home. There is no sweeter picture on earth than a 
Christian home where a loving, faithful wife keeps the 
fire continually burning upon the altar where her 
little ones are taught the ways of truth, and where her 
husband, influenced by her sweet Christian character, 
is led to Christ, and the entire family singing and 
praying, journeying toward the city of God. A 
Christian woman in the home almost settles the ques¬ 
tion. A Christian woman in society, a Christian 
woman in the world—thank God for a Christian 
woman. “Her price is far above rubies/' 


THE WORLD’S BID FOR A MAN 








THE WORLD’S BID FOR A MAN 


“But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile 
himself with the portion of the king's meat, nor with the wine 
which he drank." (Daniel i. 8.) 

I T is not my purpose, at this hour, to preach a 
temperance sermon. I have selected this text 
from which to preach a sermon on “Christian 
Character.” The text gives a moment in a great 
man's life; a moment of decision; a moment upon 
which depended his after life. A few minutes have 
been all the time required for the destruction of 
many a character. It takes years to build a charac¬ 
ter, but only a few moments to destroy it. 

Every life is made up of crises, made up of deci¬ 
sions as to right and wrong, the proper and improper 
course to take. The road of life forks every few steps. 
Where you are to-day, my brother, depends upon 
what road you took where it forked. My test puts a 
great man in the forks of a road, with simply the 
right calling him in one direction, and almost every 
premium offered for a human character calling him 
in the other. 

It is impossible to appreciate Daniel's actions 
without a knowledge of the precise circumstances 
under which he acted. Circumstances have much to 
do with our actions. 

Among the Judean hills was a walled city, the only 
city on the earth where the true God was worshiped 
and his ordinances observed. Here his peculiar people 

( 133 ) 


134 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


were gathered; here was their temple, and in this city 
their services. Far away, on a spur of tertiary rock, 
projecting over the plain of the Assyrian desert into 
the rich valley of the Mesopotamia rested another 
city, the greatest that the pride of man has ever built. 
A wall three hundred feet high, eighty feet broad, and 
from fifty to sixty miles long, surrounded this wonder¬ 
ful city, which seemed more like a civic empire than 
a city. Within this was the great palace of the king. 
It was like a city itself, seven miles around. On the 
walls of the palace were painted vast hunting scenes, 
and its gardens rose one above another like a suc¬ 
cession of mountains. The most remarkable struc¬ 
ture in the great city was the wonderful temple of Bel, 
which is supposed to have stood six hundred feet in 
the air. “Neither Karnak, in Egyptian Thebes, 
Byzantine St. Sophia, nor Gothic Cluny, nor St. 
Peter's of Rome has reached the grandeur of this 
primeval sanctuary, casting its shadows far and wide 
over the city and plain." Within this wonderful city 
there was an ancient social literary splendor corre¬ 
sponding to the physical grandeur of the city. Mag¬ 
nificent cavalry, careering through the streets, 
“horses, chariots, horsemen in companies, long roll of 
officials clad in splendid costumes of scarlet, with 
their elaborate armor, buckler shields, and helmets, 
their bows and quivers, judges, treasurers, coun¬ 
selors." Under the walls of this great city ran the 
river Euphrates, which distributed itself in various 
directions, adding much to the wondrous beauty of 
the city. Prom out this wondrous city went its 
ruler with all his gorgeous army. Toward Jerusalem 
they go. They tear down its walls, they spoil its tern- 


THE WORLD’S BID FOR A MAN 


185 


pie, capture its golden vessels, and elect from this 
conquered people the flower of the nation—bright 
young men and beautiful young women, the archi¬ 
tects, musicians, artisans—and lead them as trophies 
of their victory toward Babylon. Look upon this 
company of young Hebrews, the brightest and best of 
this wondrous people. See them as they stand on the 
Judean hill overlooking their ruined city; see the 
patriotic tear fall from their cheek, and hear them 
mumble, “If I forget thee, 0 Jerusalem, let my right 
hand forget her cunning, . . . let my tongue cleave 

to the roof of my mouth.” See them again as they 
come into the valley of Mesopotamia, and see the 
great temple erected to the heathen gods, lifting it¬ 
self in the air from out of the heathen city of Baby¬ 
lon. See them as they approach this great wall, pass 
through her gates captives to a heathen nation. See 
this little group as it gathers on the banks of the 
Euphrates River. Watch the curious Babylonians 
gather to gaze upon them. Hear them shout at them, 
“ Play for us on your instruments, sing for us a native 
song.” See the tears upon their faces as the melan¬ 
choly words fall from their quivering lips, “How 
shall we sing the songs of our God in a strange land? 
Some one has likened the loneliness of this little group 
to “a slowly dying brand on a deserted hearth; or to 
a pelican, standing by a desolate pool, pensively 
leaning its bill against its breast; or to a moping owl 
haunting some desolate ruin; or to a solitary thrush, 
pouring forth its melancholy note on the housetop 
apart from its fellows; or to the ever-lengthening shad¬ 
ows of the evening; or to a blade of grass withered by 
the sun.” 


136 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


Among this sad group of captives was the hero of 
my text. As he stands in this group of captives, his 
native city in ruins, among strangers, in a strange 
city, with a strange religion, how dark the future 
seems to him. In the midst of this gloom a bright day 
comes to Daniel. The message of the king comes to 
him, a message that he has been selected as a candi¬ 
date for one of the officers of the king's court; as a 
candidate to become an inmate of the wonderful 
palace of the king. How this call must have thrilled 
him! As this wonderful position, so full of hope and 
light, so full of honor and glory, opened up before 
him, how his ambitious young heart must have leaped 
with joy. See him as he steps up the marble steps of 
the palace, in the presence of which he had stood be¬ 
fore as a slave. Now he walks up to become an 
officer of the palace. See him as he is conducted to 
his magnificent apartments in the palace. Watch the 
light upon his long-saddened face as he takes in the 
gorgeous surroundings into which he has been called. 
Before he has properly adjusted himself to his sur¬ 
roundings the dinner hour of the king has arrived, 
and Daniel is presented with a portion of the king's 
dinner. The meat which he ate and the wine which 
he drank were set before him. Here Daniel meets 
the crisis of his life. This meat violates his religion. 
It is an unclean beast, it has been strangled, it has 
been offered to idols. The king's wine violates his 
religion. Daniel is in the palace as a candidate for 
office, to be accepted or rejected later. The king's 
meat and the king's wine lie along the road of his 
acceptance. But to eat the meat and drink the wine 
violates the religion of his fathers. Here is where 


THE WORLD’S BID FOR A MAN 137 

the road forks. As Daniel looks upon this violation of 
his religion, he looks also upon the glory and the 
honor awaiting him in the palace. He put his foot 
down—purposed in his heart, and expressed his pur¬ 
pose—maintained his purpose. He said: “I will not 
defile myself with the king’s meat and the king’s 
wine.” My friend, many a time in your life you 
have come to this very point, where the right lay on 
one side, where the purple of office, the feast of royal 
society, the ease of the palace, the pleasures of high 
society, high social life, the wealth of office, the 
example of the great, lay on the other. Perhaps 
there was but little to call you from the side of the 
right, perhaps there was much; perhaps you have 
stood, perhaps you have not. Where you are to¬ 
night has been determined by what you did when you 
stood in the crisis of life. I do not believe that there 
is any element of manhood or womanhood com¬ 
parable to that which we express in the word “ pur¬ 
pose”—an everlasting, invincible determination to 
do or not to do. Of all the elements of character con¬ 
tributing to genuine manhood and bringing the great¬ 
est success in life, brain or brawn, luck or pluck, 
learning or genius, I believe that uncompromising 
purpose, to be or not to be, to do or not to do, to have 
or not to have, is an element of character outweighing 
all the others. Never did the devil make a stronger 
bid than he makes for Daniel, and never did a young 
man make a nobler fight. Hear the devil’s first prop¬ 
osition. Daniel, you are in a strange land, the walls 
of your native city are broken down, the temple is in 
ruins, no longer they worship at Jerusalem as afore¬ 
time, you stand under the great shadow of the hea- 


138 THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 

then temple, surrounded by the pageantry of the hea¬ 
then nation, you are invited as a courtier in a heathen 
palace—why hesitate on your religion? Many a 
time, young man, has the devil made such a proposi¬ 
tion to you, and doubtless many of you have listened 
to his weird argument far away from the home in 
which you were reared, and far from the old family 
altar at which you knelt in boyhood; away from 
mother's eye and mother's voice, in a strange city, 
surrounded by strange companions, that have said, 
“Come on;" and you followed in the pleasures that 
violated your own Christian home, dishonored your 
mother, and offended your God. Some time ago I was 
in the city of New York. I was sitting in my room 
at the hotel when there was a nervous rap at my door. 
On opening the door I found an old Tennessee friend, 
a Methodist steward. He was delighted to see me, 
and said that he was in New York purchasing goods. 
After a hurried greeting he said: “George, I was de¬ 
lighted when I saw your name on the hotel register. 
I said to my wife, who came with me to New York: 
'There is not a man on earth who would enjoy a good 
theater more than George Stuart. I am going to get 
tickets for three to one of the best to-night, and have 
him go with us. He is not much known in New York 
City, and it need not be known at home that he 
ever went.'" I said: “ My friend, there are four who 
will know me, and I have more respect for two of 
them, as far as I am concerned, than for all the people 
in the city of New York." “Who?" said he. I said: 
“You and your good wife will know me, and God and 
George Stuart will know me. I should not, for the 
world, have my Heavenly Father see me do a thing 


THE WORLD’S BID FOR A MAN 


139 


like that; I would not, for the world, have George 
Stuart see me do it; I never could respect him after¬ 
wards/' A man is never better at heart at home than 
he is away from home; a man who is not religious 
everywhere is not truly religious anywhere; a man 
who is dependent on persons and surroundings for his 
proper conduct has no Christian character. A Chris¬ 
tian character is as loyal in the dark as in the light, 
as loyal at home as abroad, as loyal when only the 
burning eye of God is upon him as when the search¬ 
ing critical gaze of all mankind is upon him. He is a 
Christian from principle, and not from fear of criti¬ 
cism or from policy. It is said that when James Har¬ 
per, of the firm of Harper & Brothers, left his old- 
fashioned home to go to the city of New York, his 
good old mother followed him to the wagon—for he 
went in a wagon, as did a great many other of New 
York's great men. With her kiss still warm upon his 
lips, she said: “James Harper, you are going to a 
strange city. Remember, your mother's blood is in 
your viens, and don't you disgrace it.'' And it is said 
of him, in all his great career, that he never forgot his 
mother, never forgot his mother's God. There are 
only two of the Ten Commandments that are specif¬ 
ically emphasized. One is that which commands our 
reverence for God, and the other our love and rever¬ 
ence for our parents. “ Thou shalt not take the name 
of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not 
hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." 
“ Honor thy father and thy mother; that thy days 
may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God 
giveth thee." Find me a man who does not honor 
God, his father and mother, and I will find you a 


140 THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 

character with nothing to build on. The bottom is 
out; the foundation is gone; but, as long as there is a 
sweet, abiding love and reverence for father and mother 
and a reverence for the great God who made him, how¬ 
ever vile the man may be, there is hope for him. 
Young man, wherever you go, however far you may 
get from the old home, and from father and mother 
and the old family altar, do not forget them; do not 
dishonor them; do not defile yourself with the things 
that violate the religion of your father and mother. 
Hear the devil's next bid for Daniel. 

Daniel, there is honor in this. This is the road that 
leads to the official rank in the palace. You cannot 
afford to hesitate when great political preferment is 
at stake. How many men have sold out their God, 
their father and mother, the honor of their old home 
and their own character, to be elected to some 
political office. 0, the political intrigue of our age, 
the political corruption of our age; a great whirlpool, 
in which some of our brightest characters are plunged. 
Many noble men have entered politics, but fewer 
aged politicians stand up by the law of their God, the 
law of their father and mother. We have a few great 
statesmen who have spurned the tricks of politics, 
executed their offices as a great trust from God, who 
stand among the honored men of the earth, living or 
dead; but where is the great politician, according to 
the common acceptation of that term, who has not 
turned from the right for his own political good or 
glory? How we need statesmen like Daniel, like the 
man “who kept his station in the greatest of revolu¬ 
tions, reconciling policy and religion, business and 
devotion, magnanimity and humility, authority and 


THE WORLD’S BID FOR A MAN 


141 


affability, conversation and retirement, interest and 
integrity, heaven and the court, the favor of God and 
the favor of the king.” Thank God, we have men 
still left among us who have the courage to refuse 
office gotten by intrigue and the honors bestowed by 
trickery; but some of our greedy old political hogs 
will take whatever slops their political henchmen 
pour into their trough. Would to God the manhood 
of America would rise up and consign them to an 
everlasting retirement! Any man who will take an 
office secured by bribery will take a bribe; any man 
who will take a bribe ought to be made to take the 
pen. He who will buy a vote, if you give him his 
price, will sell one; he who will sell a vote will sell a 
principle, for a vote represents a principle; he who 
will sell one principle will sell them all, and he who will 
sell out his principles is an infamous scoundrel. If 
you want to know my opinion of a man who deals 
with the American ballot as with merchandise, put 
the first and last expressions in the above together, 
and you have it. 

It was a great bid the devil made when he spread 
out before captive Daniel the hours and the office of 
the king's court in the king's palace. But the devil 
makes another bid to Daniel: “Daniel, it is custom¬ 
ary for young men who are candidates for the king's 
court to eat of the king's meat and drink of the king's 
wine.” 0 the customs of the people! 0 the chains of 
fashion! Where is there a man or woman who can 
stand up and go clear against the customs of society? 

We are unconscious of our fearful slavery to cus¬ 
tom. Custom makes a modest, pure girl feel at ease 
at the public reception under the burning gaze of 


142 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


lustful eyes, with her arms and shoulders and neck and 
chest exposed. If she were accidentally exposed, 
under any other circumstances, she would be shocked 
almost to nervous prostration. Custom makes some 
girls feel at ease in the arms of a comparative stranger 
whirling on the ballroom floor, when if the same posi¬ 
tion should be attempted in her private parlor, she 
would scream. Custom takes decent people into the 
theater when the lewdest women are often perform¬ 
ers. If by mistake these very parties should find 
themselves in a house with similar characters, they 
would run out like they were rushing from a burning 
building. Make anything custom, and it goes. Ah, 
I like to see a character stop facing a custom that is 
bad, a custom that is wrong, and a custom that cor¬ 
rupts; how I like to see a character put the foot down 
and say, “No”—say it so that heaven and hell and 
all the earth can hear it. “No, it is wrong, and I 
will not do it. Though all of the royal line pursue 
this course, I will be captive in Babylon forever be¬ 
fore I yield.” Foolish social customs have wrecked 
many a character 

A young man in a Massachusetts town some years 
ago, the son of a drunkard, displayed ambition and 
talent in a youth's debating club of his town. Some 
one said to him: “Henry, you ought to make a man 
of yourself.” He replied: “I have no chance.” 
“But,” said this friend, “go join the Sons of Temper¬ 
ance, be sober yourself, and make a man.” He took 
the advice, he took the vows, and year by year he 
grew as a man. He was entrusted with a message to 
Mr. Adams at the Capitol of the United States. Mr. 
Adams, knowing of the young man, and from what he 


THE WORLD’S BID FOR A MAN 


143 


sprung, treated him with great consideration, and 
said to him: "I desire you shall meet some of the 
great men of your nation, and to-morrow you shall 
dine with me and with them.” They were at the 
table, young Henry at the seat of honor, and a 
number of great men at the table. Wine was upon 
the table. Mr. Adams essayed to drink with young 
Henry. A blush manteled his cheek, and in a manly 
way he said: "Mr. Adams, you must excuse me, sir; 
I have a vow that prevents my taking wine.” Mr. 
Adams put his glass upon the table, said, "There 
will be no wine drunk at this table to-day,” and every 
glass was pushed to the center. Young Henry might 
have said: "It is not often that I am in a place like 
this. It is not often that I am thrown with the great 
men of my nation. I am but a humble fellow. I can¬ 
not set customs for these great men. I will follow 
them to-day. But no, however humble, however in¬ 
significant, however surrounded I may be, I do not 
propose to surrender my manhood or my character. 
I do not propose to let the custom of great men de¬ 
stroy my vow.” He said "No.” He said it so that 
United States Congressmen heard it, and the daily 
papers noticed it the next morning. He said it so that 
the whole world has heard it. In after years he him¬ 
self became one of the greatest men of the nation, and 
sat down in the chair of the Vice President of the 
United States. And no cleaner or nobler character 
ever occupied that chair than Henry Wilson, of 
Massachusetts. How I love the man who can stand 
in the face of a wrong custom, even among the great, 
and say "No.” 

During my last year at Emory and Henry College 


144 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


a strange preacher preached in the college chapel. 
We were delighted with his sermon. It seemed to me 
a masterpiece. I inquired who he was, and learned 
that he was an old student of Emory and Henry 
College, and I sought more definite information. One 
of the old professors, who was his teacher in his 
schoolboy days, gave me this little incident. 

“That boy was the son of a widow,” said he, “who 
lived a few miles from Emory and Henry College. 
For several years he was the bell boy of the college, 
ringing the bell for his college expenses. His mother 
sent his provisions from home, and he ate them in his 
room. Month after month he struggled along 
through difficulty, until he had completed his college 
course. The day of his graduation drew near. He 
visited the old home and invited his mother to witness 
his graduation. He was a contestant for the Robert¬ 
son Oratorical Medal, a contest which has been a 
feature of the college commencements at Emory and 
Henry for almost half a century. It had been the cus¬ 
tom among the boys for the winner of this medal to 
present it to his best girl, which gave the medal 
an additional interest. The speeches for the prize were 
made on the day before the commencement. A 
great audience heard them. On the day of the com¬ 
mencement the diplomas and the medals were 
awarded. The old mother of the bell boy was present, 
taking a humble seat at the rear of the great audito¬ 
rium, clad in her homespun clothing and with her plain 
sunbonnet. She was there to see her boy graduate. 
When the graduation speeches had been made and 
the diplomas awarded, the last trial scene of the com¬ 
mencement had come, the hour for the awarding of 


THE WORLD’S BID FOR A MAN 145 

medals. When the moment came for the awarding 
of the Robertson prize (it was always awarded last), 
every one in the great pavilion was on the qui vive. 
The gentleman intrusted with the duty of awarding 
this medal walked on the platform with the beautiful 
gold medal dangling at the end of the ribbon which 
hung on his forefinger. He made proper remarks 
about what vim and pluck and push could do, and 
at the conclusion of his speech said, " If S. B. will come 
forward, I shall take pleasure in presenting to him 
this medal, which he has so faithfully won/ It was 
the bell boy. He stepped forward, received the medal, 
and turned his face to the great audience. Every eye 
was upon him. They waited in breathless silence to 
see what he would do with it. He walked down the 
long aisle to the last seat, slipped the blue ribbon over 
the sunbonnet, and said: "Mother, you wear this. 
You are worthy of it, for without you I never could 
have won it.' ” It was well in a moment like that for 
every one in that great pavilion to contribute a tear 
in honor of an act so brave, so noble, so appropriate. 
When I heard that, I said: ""Thank God for a young 
man who, in the supreme moment like that, can 
knock a custom into a cocked hat, and do the right 
thing—not because custom says so, but because it 
is right.” How many young men and young wom¬ 
en over this country forget old mother, forget aged 
father, forget home, forget to honor the loved ones at 
home; but how few forget to keep up with the little 
conventionalities of society. In keeping with cus¬ 
tom a young man never forgets to lift his hat in the 
presence of a young lady, but often forgets to lift the 
burden from dear old mother's heart. He never fails 
10 


146 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


to make a proper bow to a stranger, but he often 
fails to make a fire for mother. He never fails to give 
kind words in keeping with the little matters of social 
life, but how oft he forgets these same immunities at 
the home circle. I would not make your kind words 
less to the world, but I would have them oftener at 
home. I would not make your bows less frequent in 
polite society. I would not have you drop any of the 
immunities of polite society, but, if need be, I would 
have you break every law of common courtesy if it 
were necessary to obey the laws of God, and honor 
your father and mother. 

Daniel did not forget Jerusalem. He did not forget 
his father or his mother. He did not forget God. He 
did not yield to the custom of the palace, though it 
were to eat the king's meat and to drink the king's 
wine. 

But the devil makes another strong bid for Daniel. 
Hear it. 4 4 Daniel, all the rest eat the king's meat and 
drink the king's wine. You are the only one that re¬ 
fuses it.” It is hard to turn from the multitude. It 
is hard to break the magic circle of companionship. 
It is hard to stop when others go on, and it is hard to 
go on when others stop. It is hard to stand alone 
anywhere. In my boyhood days I lived on a farm in 
Hawkins County. Adjoining the farm where I lived 
was a Presbyterian family, noble father, remarkable 
mother, and a large, interesting family of children. 
This mother died while we lived neighbors to the 
family. What an impression her good life made upon 
the community! What an impression it made upon 
my tender boyhood! She said to her sons: “Do not 
go into places where your presence would be a re- 


THE WORLD’S BID FOR A MAN 


147 


proach on your mother.” A few years ago, after al¬ 
most a quarter of a century had passed since her 
death, I was stationed as pastor in the city of Chatta¬ 
nooga. A son of this good woman held a State office 
in the city. One of the highest officials of the State, 
with his political friends, and this young man were 
walking down the leading street in the city, when it 
was proposed to enter a saloon. They all turned in, 
but my friend stopped. He said: “ Excuse me, gentle¬ 
men, I cannot go in.” In the face of all their urgent 
pleas he simply said: “Excuse me, gentlemen, I can¬ 
not go in.” He said to me afterwards: “I never have 
gone, since my mother's death, into a place where 
my presence would be a reproach to her good name.” 
How I like to see a man, though he has been twenty- 
five years away from his old home, though the gate in 
the yard fence is rotted down, though the farm is in 
the hands of another, though the ashes of father and 
mother are moldering in the grave—how I love to see 
a young man stop and say, “No, I cannot go.” 
Stop, if there be two; stop, if there be three; stop, if 
there be twenty, and say, “Go on.” It takes a man 
to do that. 

Young man, hear this to-night! You can never 
climb to where God would have you stand until you 
learn to go alone. 

But the devil makes another bid for Daniel. Hear 
this bid. How subtle, how powerful, and how many 
thousands it has captured! “Daniel, there is money 
in it. You are a poor captive in a strange city, but 
as an officer of the palace of the king, the king's 
treasury is at your command to supply your wants 
and to furnish your luxuries. Your wardrobe comes 


148 THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 

from the king's treasury, your food comes down from 
the king's table. The financial question will be set¬ 
tled when you get to be officer of the king." One of 
the earliest lessons I learned from my old reader was 
the rustic proverb, “ Money makes the mare go." Do 
you see these two silver dollars I hold in each of my 
hands? When I hold them out at arm's length from 
me, they have little to do with my vision. I can see 
this brother here, I can see the Bible, and I can see 
my mother. But look again. When I bring them 
thus close to my eyes, they shut off my vision. I 
cannot see the brother here, I cannot see the Bible, I 
cannot see my mother. I warn you, my brother, do 
not let the dollar get too close to you. The question 
of the business world to-day is not, “Is it right?" but 
“Will it pay?" It is not, “Is it according to God's 
Word?" but “Is it profitable?" There are few 
things that are not sold for money to-day. A man 
who is swallowed up by his bank, or by his mer¬ 
chandise, or by office work, so that he cannot take 
time to have family prayers, or give proper religious 
instruction to his children—that man puts his little 
children on the block and sells them off for money. 
That man who cannot take time from his business to 
spend a quiet, social, and religious hour with his wife 
at home, puts his wife on the block and sells her off 
for money. That man who would run a building for 
unholy purposes or in unholy business puts his char¬ 
acter and his soul on the block and sells them off for 
money. That man or woman who would pursue any 
unholy business of life for monetary considerations 
puts his or her own soul on the block and barters it off 
for money. How few there are to-day who stand up 


THE WORLD’S BID FOR A MAN 


149 


flat-footed on God's Word and absolutely refuse to 
engage in anything, however much money there is in 
it, which in the least violates God's command. How 
many men to-day have even a frivolous excuse for 
pursuing unholy business on the Sabbath day? Busi¬ 
ness mail is read and considered, business conversation 
and thoughts indulged in, drug stores, livery stables, 
ice markets, fruit stands, cigar stands—almost every 
kind of traffic carried on even by Church members, on 
God's holy day, with the frivolous and false excuse 
that it is a necessity. Preaching in a Tennessee city 
sometime ago, I said: “It is better to run a dray and 
sell meat and meal and flour and hay on God's holy 
day, than to open the drug store and sell tobacco and 
cigars and soda water. The former things are neces¬ 
sities, but the latter things are doubtful luxuries; and 
just as a necessity is better than a doubtful luxury on 
God's day, so the groceryman who sells meat and 
flour and meal and hay is better in his morals than he 
who opens the drug store and sells cigars and tobacco 
and soda water." As I said this a leading official in 
the Baptist Church heard it. He walked down to his 
drug store and said to his clerks: “Hereafter there will 
be nothing sold in this drug store on Sunday except 
medicine on a prescription." I said again in the same 
sermon: “It is better to plow and reap and sow on 
God's day than to run the average livery stable, for 
plowing and reaping and sowing are innocent and use¬ 
ful employments; but buggy-driving, as conducted by 
the young men and young women of this country, is not 
a doubtful luxury, but an immoral pastime. And he 
who runs the livery stable, open to promiscuous hire 
on God's holy day, not only violates God's holy law 


150 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


in doing unnecessary work on the Sabbath, but he ab¬ 
solutely contributes to the damnation of the children 
of this country/' An old member of the Methodist 
Church, who owned a large livery stable, was present. 
He walked down to his stable and said to his hands: 
“Boys, hereafter we will do no business on God's 
holy day. You can go home and go to church with 
your families." And he closed his livery stable, and 
that livery stable, to my personal knowledge, has been 
closed tight and fast on Sunday for ten years. A 
short time ago I met the gentleman, and I said to 
him, “ How is your business? " And he said: “ George, 
thank God, I have showed the world that a man can 
run even a livery stable according to God's law." 
My dear brother, whenever you make up your mind 
to be a Christian man, made out of the right kind of 
stuff, you will put your foot down and say, “What¬ 
ever cannot be run according to God's law will not be 
run by me." 0 for a nation of people that cannot be 
sold on the marts of the world like hogs! 0 for a 
manhood that will stand for the right because it is 
right—a man who cannot be bribed! O for a man 
like Daniel, who can stand and look the world, the 
flesh, and the devil in the face and say, “No. I 
will not violate my religion, I will not disgrace my 
father and mother, I will not offend my God." “I 
will not defile myself even with the king's meat or the 
king's drink." It matters not if Jerusalem lies in 
ruins among her Judean hills, while I am surrounded 
by the pageantry of Babylon; it matters not if this 
gate opens into political honors of the king, it matters 
not if in this I am following the customs of the great, 
it matters not if in this I am going with the throng and 


THE WORLD’S BID FOR A MAN 151 

not seem odd, it matters not if in this I shall get the 
wealth of the world; still my foot goes down, and I say 
it so that heaven and earth and hell can hear it, "No, 
I will not defile myself.” My character is above a 
king, my character is above the customs of a palace, 
my character is above the purples of political honor, 
my character is more than the company of the throng 
about me, my character means more than gold—I 
will not defile myself. Thank God for the man! I go 
back a long ways in history to get him, but it is worth 
a journey to ancient Babylon to find a man like this. 
I never read of this wonderful character that I do 
not, deep in my heart, long to be a man. But Daniel 
does not eat the meat nor drink the wine. What be¬ 
comes of the act? In all ages of the world God has 
taken care of the man who has taken care of God's 
law. God has stood by the man that has stood by his 
word. God has never forsaken the man who never 
forsook his God. Daniel, though apparently turning 
his back on everything, turned his back on nothing. 
Though willing to surrender everything for his religion, 
he surrendered nothing. God has never asked any 
man to give up anything of permanent merit to be¬ 
come a Christian. Daniel was selected by the king, 
and through four dynasties, he was the first man—the 
honored man. He was honored in the heathen govern¬ 
ment, honored in the heathen palace, honored in the 
heathen state; honored of God and honored of man, 
but envied by the weak. And those who envied him 
watched him day in and day out to find a flaw in his 
great character, but no flaws could be found. At last 
they said, "We shall have to accuse him on account of 
his religion,” and their nefarious scheme was plotted. 


152 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


They went to the haughty king and asked him to 
sign a document which forbade that any man pray to 
any God, save to the king, for thirty days, under the 
penalty of being cast into the cavern of the wild lions. 
Now, when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, 
he went into his house (and his windows were open in 
his chamber toward Jerusalem), he knelt upon his 
knees three times a day and prayed, and gave thanks 
to God as he did aforetime. What a wonderful mo¬ 
ment in this man's life, when he reads his own doom 
in the law of the king, and then walks deliberately to 
the open window, which he knows is guarded by his 
enemies. He kneels down and prays as calmly as if 
there were no lions' den or king's law, nor guarding 
enemy. Daniel is reported to the king, and the king 
is sorrowful, for he honored this noble young man; but, 
according to the law which could not be changed, 
Daniel was taken to the cave, not cowering, not down¬ 
cast, but he walked toward the lions' den like a man. 
They had put many a skulking, cowardly criminal 
into the lions' den, but this was the first man they had 
ever led thither. When they had thrown him into the 
cavern, they listened to hear the lions tear him, but 
they heard not a noise. The great God had gone 
before, and with an omnipotent hand, that had made 
the lions' frame, he stroked their heads and ordered 
them to lie down in peace and wait the coming of his 
servant. When the hour for evening prayer came, 
Daniel, as he walked in darkness in the cavern, no 
doubt studied for a moment, reckoned directions, and 
made up his mind which way Jerusalem stood, knelt 
down with his face toward Jerusalem and prayed to 
his God as aforetime. What a picture to the doubting 


THE WORLD’S BID FOR A MAN 


153 


old world to see Daniel, before the king’s decree, in 
the face of the lions’ den, kneeling before the open 
window toward Jerusalem! What a picture to see 
this man in the dark cavern, surrounded by fierce 
lions, but in the pavilion of the great eternal God, 
kneeling in the darkness with his face toward the 
ruined walls of Jerusalem! At the hour for retire¬ 
ment, perhaps Daniel pillowed his head on the shaggy 
mane of the lion over whose mouth rested the hand of 
his God and slept sweetly through the night. Before 
the dawn of the morning the king was early at the 
cave, half suspecting that God would be with such a 
man, and down into the mouth of the cave he cried: 
“0 Daniel, is that God whom thou servest continual¬ 
ly able to deliver thee?” And Daniel answered: 
“O king, live forever. He is able.” Thank God, he 
is able. No fiery furnace can burn where God 
says, “Thou shalt not burn.” No hungry lions 
can devour where God says, “Thou shall not 
devour.” When God says, “I will be with thee,” 
that means that he will be with us, for us, 
whatever our actions demand of him. Brother, do 
not fear to throw your life on the great arm of God, 
to throw your business and your all on the great arm 
of God; and fear not the world, fear not man, fear not 
the devil, only fear God and do right. 






















THE PHASES OF A GREAT 
MAN’S LIFE 









THE PHASES OF A GREAT MAN’S LIFE 


“ But Peter followed him afar off unto the high priest’s palace, 
and went in, and sat with the servants, to see the end.” (Matthew 
xxvi. 58.) 

I HAVE read you a text that has been used from 
time immemorial as a whip to scourge back¬ 
sliders—a text introducing the scene bringing 
out the weak place in a single day's experience of a 
great man's life. It is true that straws tell which 
way the wind blows; one act is often an index to the 
life, but as a rule it is unfair to pick out the darkest 
day and the darkest hour of any man's life as an in¬ 
dex to his character. If I were to confine myself 
closely to my text, and preach from it as men ordi¬ 
narily preach from texts of Scripture, I might 
divide it as follows. First, the fact that Peter fol¬ 
lowed his Lord; second, the way in which he fol¬ 
lowed him—“afar off;" third, the purpose for which 
he followed him—“to see the end." But I purpose 
in this hour to take a broader view of this great charac¬ 
ter than a single verse can give, to take a fairer view 
than a single day's transactions will give. The Bible is 
a faithful biography; it does not give a tombstone ac¬ 
count of any character. It brings out the dark and 
the bright, the good and the bad—it gives us the 
man. No character in the book has interested me 
more than the character of St. Peter. I read the 
whole New Testament through in search of all the 
facts concerning this man, who at one moment said 

( 157 ) 


158 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


unto his Lord, “ Though all men shall be offended 
because of thee, yet will I never be offended; . . . 
though I shall die with thee, yet will I not deny thee,” 
and at another began he to curse and to swear, say¬ 
ing, “I know not the man;” who at one moment 
said, “Lord, I am ready to go with thee, both into 
prison, and to death,” and at another “followed 
him afar off;” who at one moment, with sword in 
hand, met “a great multitude with sword and 
staves, from the chief priests and elders of the 
people, . . . and struck a servant of the high 
priests and smote off his ear,” and at another cow¬ 
ered before the maid who saw him and said unto them 
that were there, “This fellow was also with Jesus of 
Nazareth.” 

This is the man who at one moment, arraigned 
before the “rulers, and elders, and scribes, and Annas 
the high priest, and Caiaphas, and John, and Alexan¬ 
der, and as many as were of the kindred of the high 
priest,” in the great city of Jerusalem, commanded 
him “not to speak at all, nor teach in the name of 
Jesus,” answered and said unto them: “Whether it 
be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more 
than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak 
the things which we have seen and heard.” And at 
another moment, when they said, “Thou also art 
one of them; for thy speech bewrayeth thee,” he 
began to curse and to swear, saying, “I know not 
the man.” And it was he who at one moment, stand¬ 
ing before the multitude on the day of Pentecost, 
preached a sermon, that “when they heard this, 
they were pricked in their hearts, and said unto Peter 
and the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, 


PHASES OF A GREAT MAN’S LIFE 159 


what shall we do?” and the same day there were 
added unto them three thousand souls. At another 
time he stood alone in the darkness, weeping bitterly 
over his cowardice. At one moment he was a great 
preacher, leading three thousand souls to Christ in 
one hour, and at another a simple Galilean fisherman, 
dragging his net through the blue waters. 

Who is this queer man? What is he? As I go 
back over my own life I can find a day here and there 
when I performed deeds that I would be ashamed to 
recite before this audience. I can find in there days 
in which I have performed deeds which, to recite 
them, would bring upon me the accusation of boast¬ 
ing. I have dark hours in my life, I have rough 
places in my life. Who has not? Don't pick out 
the darkest day of my life, my brother, and call that 
George Stuart. Don't pick out the meanest, weakest 
thing I ever did, and make that the key to my life 
work. Take me from the cradle to the grave, that 
is my life. Take me in my sins, take me at the altar, 
take me in the shout of salvation, take me in my 
weakest moment, take me in my strongest, take me 
in my worst deed, take me in my best, take my life. 
Our lives are made up of epochs. 

David overcoming the champion of the camp of 
the Philistines, and being overcome by the beautiful 
Bathsheba, presents a painful contrast of strength 
and weakness. Yet there are few lives in which 
there are not these contrasts. Let us to-day take 
an impartial, honest view of this great man. There 
are two great preachers of the early Church who seem 
to rise like mountain peaks above all others. These 
two are Peter and Paul. In the Acts of the Apostles 


160 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


they seem to be taken as great examples to illustrate 
to the world the work of the apostles. St. Peter, a 
fisherman, and St. Paul, a learned doctor; St. Peter, 
called by his Master from earth, and St. Paul, called 
by his Lord from heaven; St. Peter, who denied his 
Lord, and St. Paul, who persecuted him; St. Peter, 
the central figure of the first twelve chapters of the 
Acts of the Apostles, and St. Paul, the central figure 
of the last sixteen; St. Peter, the man of great heart, 
great impulse, and great energy, and St. Paul, the 
man of a great head and wonderful equanimity. 
How I love to study these two great characters, 
through both of whom the Holy Spirit wrought such 
wonderful things. But J ask you to-day to come with 
me in the study of the character of St. Peter. There 
were three distinct epochs in his life: Peter, the 
Galilean fisherman, before he met his Lord; Peter, 
the disciple of Jesus, from the day he forsook his net 
on Galilee until he received the Holy Spirit on Pente¬ 
cost; and Peter from Pentecost until his death. 

As a Galilean fisherman his very occupation was 
conducive of purity, innocence, and gentleness. It 
was the life from which St. John, the gentle, sweet- 
spirited disciple, came, and Peter was his genial com¬ 
panion. As they watched the waters of the Galilean 
sea play through the meshes of their net, as they lay 
upon the bank or sat in their Galilean homes, there 
was little to corrupt or vitiate them. They came from 
an innocent life. The cursing and swearing referred 
to in the language of Peter was not the reckless, 
careless profanity that falls from the lips of our mod¬ 
ern blasphemers, but it was emphasis given to his 
affirmation in the form of an oath, with the penalty 


PHASES OF A GREAT MAN’S LIFE 161 


of a curse. It was a great day when “Andrew, Simon 
Peter's brother, first-findeth his own brother Simon, 
and saith unto him, We have found the Messiah, 
which is, being interpreted, the Christ. And he 
brought him to Jesus/' It was a great day when St. 
Peter first looked upon his Lord. It was a great day 
when Jesus first looked upon Simon Peter. It was 
not a casual look that his Master gave him, but a 
look in which the eyes of his Lord went through and 
through him, searching every avenue of his heart, 
every element of his character. It was not an acci¬ 
dental sentence that fell from his Master's lips when 
first he looked upon this great man. He said: “Thou 
art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called 
Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone." 
Christ looked at the great character before him and 
saw that there was rock in him. It was the Master's 
decision of his character. Though Peter returned to 
his fishing boat, he did not forget the one whom he 
had met. It was a glad day when his eyes rested 
upon his Lord approaching the shore where they 
were mending their nets. It was not an accidental 
journey that Christ made. His steps toward the 
boat of Peter were not accidental steps. The fact that 
he stepped into Peter's boat, when the boat of the other 
was lying near by, was not accident. He said unto 
Peter, “Thrust out a little from the land,'' that he 
might be separated from the great throng. While 
he stood in Peter's boat and talked to the great 
throng, there was not a more earnest listener in all of 
that number than the man who sat at his feet. His 
sermon completed, as if to pay for the use of his pul¬ 
pit and teach a great lesson simultaneously, he said 
11 


162 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


unto Simon: "Launch out into the deep, and let 
down your nets for a draft.” And Simon answered, 
and said unto him, " Master, we have toiled all the 
night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless, at thy 
word I will let down the net.” It seems that 
Jesus took hold of the net to help them, for 
the next verse reads: "And when they had thus 
done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and 
their net brake. And they beckoned unto their 
partners, which were in the other ship, that they 
should come and help them. And they came, and 
filled both the ships, so that they began to sink.” 
Though the fishermen had toiled all night and had 
caught nothing, Peter was so impressed by the won¬ 
derful words of the man who stood in his boat and 
talked to the people, that he was willing to hang his 
net on the words of his Master and let it down. As 
the great pile of fishes floundered upon the shore, to 
the astonishment of all, Christ looked upon them and 
then looked upon Simon. Jesus said unto him: 
"Simon, fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch 
men.” Think you that this was merely a curious 
freak of our Lord? Think you that this was only to 
make a display of his wonderful power? Ah, my 
brother, I see in this a wonderful prophecy, I see in 
this as one of the miracles a wonderful lesson. 
"Simon, as you have hung the business of your life 
upon my word, and had this wonderful success, that 
has astonished you all, now hang your life on me, and 
I will give you the success in catching men that you 
have witnessed in your secular profession this day.” 
Look at this little picture and then look at St. Peter 
hanging upon the words of his Lord, "Tarry ye at 


PHASES OF A GREAT MAN’S LIFE 163 

Jerusalem.” Look at him as he stands in Jerusalem, 
pulling the gospel net with three thousand souls. 
Think you not that this was but a prophecy of our 
Lord of his coming success? I believe that, as Christ 
saw the rock in his character and called him Cephas, 
so Christ saw the success in his life, which he pictured 
in this wonderful draft of fishes. “And when they 
had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and 
followed him.” We now look upon this man no long¬ 
er as a Galilean fisherman, but as a disciple following 
his Lord. He was a born leader. Some one has said 
that he who is content to go behind, God never made 
to go before. If a dozen men start out from this city 
on any expedition whatever, without organization, 
twenty-four hours would not elapse until some man 
would be in the lead. It would be the born leader. 
Peter was the spokesman. As you read the Gospels 
through, you will be struck with this fact, that when 
Christ put a question to the disciples the record is, 
“and Peter answered,” “and Peter answered,” “and 
Peter answered.” When Christ put the general 
question to the disciples, “Whom do men say that I 
the Son of man am?” they said, “Some say that thou 
art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jere- 
mias, or one of the prophets,” but when he put the 
test question to them, “Whom say ye that I am?” 
Simon Peter answered and said, “Thou art the Christ, 
the Son of the living God.” 

The people regarded him as the leader, and “when 
they came to Capernaum, they that received tribute 
money came to Peter, and said, Doth not your Mas¬ 
ter pay tribute?” 

The disciples regarded him as the leader. After 


164 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


the resurrection, in the dark hour, Peter's mind 
turned back to the net, to the boat, and “ Peter saith 
unto them, I go a fishing. They say unto him, We 
also go with thee." When Peter turned, every man 
with him followed. He was an honest doubter seek¬ 
ing the truth. I have sympathy for an honest 
doubter if he is seeking the truth; but a superficial 
egoist who has read a few volumes of infidel literature, 
a few novels and a little poetry here and there, and a 
few scattering chapters of Scripture, and with a self- 
complacent air turns his back upon the preacher, upon 
the Bible, upon religious literature, and calls himself 
an infidel, is, of all characters, most contemptible 
to me. 

The doubt in the mind of an honest man is a pick 
in the hand of an honest geologist. He will dig for 
truth, and God will hear the sound of his pick and 
come to him sooner or later. 

Paul was such a character, and God spake to him 
from the heavens. The eunuch was such a character, 
and when his earnestness arose to such a height that 
he read along the highway, God called Philip out of 
a great revival and sent him to his chariot to give 
him instruction. Cornelius was such a man, and God 
sent an angel to tell him where he could find a man to 
give him instruction. An honest doubter seeking for 
truth, such a character was Simon the fisherman. 
When Christ was walking on the sea and his aston¬ 
ished disciples stood and gazed at him, they were all 
troubled and cried out for fear. Jesus said: “It is I; 
be not afraid." They were all silent, but Peter an¬ 
swered him and said: “Lord, if it be thou, bid me 
come unto thee on the water." How natural that 


PHASES OP A GREAT MAN’S LIFE 165 


Peter should be the one to test the matter; it was his 
nature to test. And Jesus said, “Come.” And 
when Peter “saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; 
and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save 
me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his 
hand, and caught him, and said unto him, 0 thou of 
little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” It seems 
that Christ himself, at times, became a little im¬ 
patient with his doubts, but the earnestness of the 
man won the Master's sympathy. Christ rarely 
answered questions of simple curiosity. He usually 
turned them off by some other question or by some 
reproof, but he never turned Peter away. What a 
help it would have been to Peter's faith to have walked 
upon the water, what a test of the Master's divinity! 
But “as he went out of the temple, one of his disciples 
saith unto him, Master, see what manner of stones 
and what buildings are here! And Jesus answering 
said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings? 
there shall not be left one stone upon another, that 
shall not be thrown down. And as he sat upon the 
mount of Olives over against the temple, Peter and 
James and John and Andrew asked him privately 
[Peter, no doubt, the spokesman], Tell us, when shall 
these things be? and what shall be the sign when all 
these things shalt be fulfilled?” Peter, what do you 
want to know for? It is the nature of the man. If 
he had a definite sign of the fulfillment and then the 
fulfillment, he could have something for his faith to 
rest upon. He is seeking for evidence, he is willing to 
make an honest test. When Christ said, “Let down 
the net,” though he had toiled all the night and 
caught nothing, though the noise upon the shore and 


166 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


the time of day might be unfavorable to fishing, still 
he was willing to make the test. “At thy word, Lord, 
I let down the net.” In my text, when all the other 
disciples had scattered and fled, Peter followed “to 
see the end.” He was not satisfied, he was never sat¬ 
isfied until he had gone to the bottom of everything. 
Another tried to follow close to the Master, and the 
servants of the high priest turned and stripped the 
robes from him and he ran away naked. Peter fol¬ 
lowed at a distance—the only way he could have 
followed. I used to think from the abuse heaped 
upon him for following at a distance that all the other 
disciples walked close to their Master, speaking 
sympathizing words as he journeyed; but the truth 
is that Peter was the only one that dared follow him 
at all, unless that other disciple were John, and there 
is strong evidence that it was a layman, and not one 
of the twelve. If this be true, Peter was the only one 
that dared to follow his Lord. Though the disciples 
followed Peter when he went fishing, they do not 
follow him when he walks into the jaws of death. 

Peter was determined to see the end. When it was 
announced that Jesus had risen from the dead, Peter 
and John ran to the sepulcher. John possibly, being 
the younger, outran Peter, came first to the sepulcher, 
and seeing the stone rolled away, was satisfied and 
stopped; but Peter did not stop until his eye searched 
the sepulcher from one end to the other and saw the 
napkins folded. He was a man not to stop until he 
went to the bottom. He was only an honest doubter, 
but he was an earnest man, an impulsive man. On 
the Mount of Transfiguration, when he “was trans¬ 
figured before them, his face did shine as the sun, and 


PHASES OF A GREAT MAN’S LIFE 167 


his raiment was white as the light; and behold, there 
appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with 
him.” He then answered and said unto Jesus: 
“Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us 
make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for 
Moses, and one for Elias.” This was a great hour for 
St. Peter. When Moses, the great representative of 
the dispensation of the law, Elias, the representative 
of the prophetic dispensation, and Jesus, the repre¬ 
sentative of the new dispensation, stood together, 
Peter's faith began to glow, his earnest heart wanted 
to linger there. Have you never been at a place, 
some great meeting, for instance, where the gospel 
was greatly honored and where wonderful power was 
manifested, and your faith seemed stronger than at 
any other period of your life? Did you never desire 
to linger longer? One of the great tests of the pres¬ 
ence of God in a congregation is the disposition on 
the part of the people to linger after the services. 
Faith is strong, hope is bright, God is near, and we 
are loath to leave the sacred place. Peter's character 
is beautifully illustrated in the little scene where 
Jesus began to wash his disciples' feet. “Then came 
he to Simon Peter: and Peter saith unto him, Lord, 
dost thou wash my feet? . . . Thou shalt never 
wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee 
not, thou hast no part with me. Simon Peter said 
unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands 
and my head.” When Christ came to wash Peter's 
feet, his manliness declined; but when informed, “If 
I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me,” he was 
willing to be washed all over by the Master, if it 
but gave him a part with him. How impulsive and 


168 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


gushing are the words, “Not my feet only, but also 
my hands and my head”! Christ recognized the 
fact that he had in St. Peter an earnest doubter, but 
a faithful searcher for the truth, and he had him 
present at all the miracles which he wrought. Christ 
seemed anxious to establish him in the faith. As 
they were going to Jerusalem, and Christ passed the 
barren fig tree, he cursed it. “And in the morning as 
they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from 
the roots. And Peter calling to remembrance saith 
unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou 
cursedst is withered away.” Did you ever notice the 
answer? To me it seems pathetic. Christ had 
watched this earnest man seeking for truth, and in 
answer to this inquiry of Peter's he simply said: 
“Have faith in God.” 

In one of the last conversations the Master had 
with Peter he said a thing that has always interested 
me. “And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, 
Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you 
as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith 
fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy 
brethren.” Christ seemed to be relying upon Peter. 
He seemed to look to him as the one who, when 
thoroughly rooted and grounded in the faith, will be 
a great help and stay to the others. “Satan hath 
desired to sift thee as wheat.” When the wheat is 
sifted, nothing but the chaff remains; but when the 
wheat is winnowed, the chaff is blown away and noth¬ 
ing but the wheat remains. Christ's leaning upon 
this great apostle and praying for him is, to me, a 
fact of great significance. Christ regarded him as a 
man of such strength of character that, when thor- 


PHASES OF A GREAT MAN’S LIFE 169 


oughly settled, he should be a great tower of strength 
to his brethren, and so he proved. When Peter was 
in prison, the Church was in distress. The good 
women gathered and spent the hours in prayer. We 
have thus looked at his character from many stand¬ 
points, and I now come to the most interesting phase 
of his life, that from the day of Pentecost to his 
death. 

A life never rises higher than its faith. St. Peter's 
life vacillated between doubt and faith. After he had 
seen his Master walk upon the water and all that 
were in the ship he cried out, “Thou art the Son of 
God;" when at Caesarea Philippi Peter answered, 
“Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God;" 
when at the transfiguration he saw the glory of God— 
it seemed that at each of these points his faith was 
settled; but when he followed to the palace “to see 
the end" and saw his Master insulted and buffeted, 
saw him apparently powerless in the hands of the 
enemy, saw him apparently shorn of all his strength, 
when challenged to prove himself God, he was silent, 
when asked even to prophesy who smote him and he 
seemed unable to do so, Peter's faith failed him, and 
he gives us the darkest scene in his whole life, in his 
denial of his Lord. But when his Master looked at 
him on his third denial, just as the cock crew, and 
the glance of his Master shot an arrow into his heart, 
he turned and walked into the darkness; whether he 
prostrated himself upon the earth or whether he 
stood, I do not know, but he wept bitterly. How 
bitterly he wept, none but God and he knew. It is 
difficult to determine what was the state of this great 
man's mind, as it struggled with the words of the 


170 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


Master, with the miracles, with the mock robe, with 
the crown of thorns, and his death upon Calvary. 
When he struggled with the false reports of Roman 
soldiers and the empty sepulcher, when we remember 
that he was but a man, it is difficult to tell what states 
of mind he possessed. The record tells that in the 
darkness he turned back to his net, to his boat, and 
to the sea. As they toiled all night and at each 
lifting of the net there appeared nothing, no one can 
tell how oft his mind went back to his Master and to 
his words. No one can tell how oft he thought of 
the miraculous draft of fishes when his Master was 
in the boat, and when he hung his net upon his Mas¬ 
ter's words. As they were closing up a long, sad, 
fruitless night of labor and a form on the shore in the 
gray of the morning asked the question, “ Children, 
have you any meat?" who can tell what thoughts 
were awakened in the minds of those tired fisher¬ 
men? 

The promptness with which they cast their nets 
upon the right side of the vessel at his command 
shows that there was a gleam of light in his appear¬ 
ance on the shore, which was further proved by the 
fact that so quickly “that disciple whom Jesus loved 
saith unto Peter, It is the Lord." Who can tell the 
feelings of Peter when he heard that it was the Lord 
and girt his fisher's coat unto him and cast himself 
into the sea? Who can describe his feelings when he 
looked upon his risen Lord standing upon the shore 
of Galilee? Who can tell how quickly he ran through 
miracle and speech and event, through the crucifixion 
and burial, up to that hour, and what a wonderful 
grip his faith took on the gospel when he looked 


PHASES OF A GREAT MAN’S LIFE 171 

through all these things at his risen Lord? If I were 
a painter, I would paint the grouping of these pictures 
upon the shores of the sea. It is a group of all the 
great events in St. Peter's life. When Peter stood 
upon the shore with his Master, Christ addressed 
him: “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than 
these?" Did you note that he said unto him, “ Simon, 
son of Jonas"? That was the first thing the Master 
ever said unto him, that was the first name the Mas¬ 
ter ever called him. How that carried him back to 
the moment when he first met his Lord! The fishes 
floundering upon the shore carried him back to the 
second time he ever met his Lord. When looking 
upon the floundering fishes his Master had said, 
“ Follow me." It carried him back to the hour 
when, hanging his net on his Master's words, he had 
caught his first miraculous draft of fishes. Jesus had 
said: “Go into Galilee, and wait until I come." He 
did not say, “Go back to your fishing;" he did not 
say, “Go back to your occupation."' He said, 
“Wait." 

If they were out of meat and hunger had forced them 
to the fish net, if they had hungered twelve hours 
more hanging on the words of their Master, he would 
have come to them bringing meat. If you notice, as 
soon as they were come to land they saw the fire of 
coals there, fish laid thereon, and bread. Jesus saith, 
“Bring of the fish which ye have now caught." 
How oft we give up just in the hour of triumph, how 
oft we fail just at the moment of the supreme test! 
The bread question has driven many a servant of God 
to secularity, the bread and meat question has 
driven many a servant of God to the boat and to the 


172 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


net. In the first miraculous draft of fishes Christ 
said, “Hang your life on my word.” They forsook 
all and followed him, but in the dark moment they 
went back to the net and to the boat. How the 
floundering fishes carried Peter back to the moment 
when he proposed to hang all on the word of Christ! 
Jesus said unto them, “Come and dine.” When 
was the last time Peter sat with his Master? Was 
it not in the hour when Jesus said unto him, 
“Though all men be offended, yet will I never be 
offended”? 

How that little meal carried him back to the hour 
when he made his strong profession which he had so 
poorly carried out! As the fire burned upon the 
shore and they stood around it, how that little pic¬ 
ture carried him back to the time when he stood by 
the fire in the presence of his Master and denied him, 
saying, “ I know not the man.” How the crowing of 
the chickens from the hillside houses by the sea 
carried him back to the time when he heard the 
chicken crow in the presence of his Master! Well 
may he say as he looks upon each of these pictures, 
bringing up every great event in his past life, “Lord, 
thou knowest all things.” There was one thing that 
this earnest, honest man knew, and he was confident 
that his Master had the same knowledge, and that 
was, “I love thee.” Looking over his whole past 
life, which the Saviour had brought in panoramic 
view before him—the name he gave, the floundering 
fishes, the supper, the fire, and the crowing of the 
cock—brought vividly before him every dark pic¬ 
ture of his life. Looking back over it, he said, in 
substance, “Lord, you know all.” The pictures 


PHASES OF A GREAT MAN’S LIFE 173 


before us bring out every slip I have made, but I 
fall back amid all my stumbling on one proposition, 
“I love thee.” Here the divinity of Jesus Christ was 
settled. After being settled, it settled everything 
else. Christ said: “ Tarry ye at Jerusalem until ye be 
endued with power from on high.” St. Peter took 
that command and lingered. Perhaps, after they had 
waited in Jerusalem three days and nights and the 
power had not come, the devil said unto Peter, “ Your 
Lord has gone and the power cometh not; you had 
better return to the net.” But Peter waited. When 
the seventh day came, possibly the devil said, “ You 
have waited a whole week and the power cometh 
not.” When the ninth day came, perhaps the devil 
made his hardest fight in the very crisis; but Peter 
waited. The power came and he preached a sermon 
that led three thousand souls to Christ. Never 
before had Peter absolutely surrendered the world, 
never before had he made up his mind to hang on the 
words of the Lord Jesus, though he should starve. 

It is this absolute, unconditional consecration fight 
to the supreme test that qualifies any man for the 
baptism of the Holy Spirit. As Peter stood preaching 
that wonderful sermon, if one had said, “Are you not 
the man who denied his Lord in the palace?” he 
could have answered: “I have wept bitterly, sur¬ 
rendered, and prayed ten days since that.” In this 
great apostle we have a wonderful example of how 
the disciple of Jesus Christ is endued with power. 
Brother, have you ever had the supreme test? Have 
you seen the bottom of the flour barrel? Have you 
seen the last piece of meat on the griddle? Have you 
stood the supreme test of giving up this old world and 


174 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


hanging your life upon the words of the Lord Jesus 
Christ? Have you, after this complete surrender, 
laid all upon the altar and waited for the fire to come? 
Have you had the glorious experience that follows 
such a surrender and such a waiting in the upper 
chamber? 


LOVE YOUR ENEMIES 







t 




















LOVE YOUR ENEMIES 

“/ say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you , 
do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully 
use you, and persecute you .” (Matthew v. 44.) 

M Y text is from Christ's wonderful Sermon on 
the Mount. The listening multitude heard 
their great Teacher speak as never man 
spake. Sentence after sentence, he states great fun¬ 
damental truths. Here he gives a command that the 
world had never heard before. They had heard it 
said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." 
They had heard it said, “Thou shalt love thy neigh¬ 
bor, and hate thine enemy;" but never before had 
they received the command to love their enemies. 

Many of Jesus's hearers had read in the old Mosaic 
doctrine, “If any mischief follow, then thou shalt 
give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for 
hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for 
wound, stripe for stripe." Christ does not contra¬ 
dict the Mosaic law, but he gives to the world a 
higher law. 

A nation of people led by the worship of idols, 
ignorant of God and higher laws, unable to under¬ 
stand or appreciate the deeper, diviner laws of the 
pure heart, a hungering and thirsting after righteous¬ 
ness, could be governed only by physical laws. Their 
life must be preserved by rigid laws, demanding life 
for life, tooth for tooth, hand for hand; but after 
years of education and discipline, God had led them 
out on the Mount, where they were able to hear and 
12 ( 177 ) 


178 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


receive the truths of the gospel. The light of the 
world is now come, and men, seeing the light, shall 
walk in the light as he is in the light—no longer gov¬ 
erned by mere laws and commandments, but, governed 
from within by the regeneration, calling into being 
motives, desires, and affections which govern the 
whole man. 

The very nature of this new heart is to be that of 
the great heart of God, “according as his divine 
power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto 
life and godliness, through the knowledge of him 
that hath called us to glory and virtue: whereby 
are given unto us exceeding great and precious prom¬ 
ises: that by these ye might be partakers of the di¬ 
vine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in 
the world through lust.” 

The very evidence of this passing out of a sinful 
nature into a divine nature is love. “We know that 
we have passed from death unto life, because we love 
the brethren.” “Beloved, let us love one another: 
for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born 
of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not 
knoweth not God; for God is love.” If I were to 
write my whole religion in one word, I should write 
the word “ love.” It was love that moved God to give 
his Son to die for us. It was love that moved Christ 
to surrender the glories of heaven and suffer the agony 
of Calvary. We know we have passed from death 
unto life because we love. “But whoso hath this 
world's goods, and seeth his brother hath need, and 
shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how 
dwelleth the love of God in him?” The whole law, 
then, is briefly stated in this: “Thou shalt love the 


LOVE YOUR ENEMIES 


179 


Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy 
soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: 
... and thy neighbor as thyself.” Thus we see 
that love originated the plan of salvation. Love 
wrought it out on Calvary. Love is the evidence of 
it, and love is the practice of it. If a man love God 
with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all 
his strength, and with all his mind, then every other 
Christian duty will be easy and natural. He will 
then love humanity. “If a man say, I love God, and 
hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not 
his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God 
whom he hath not seen? And this commandment 
have we from him, That he who loveth God love his 
brother also.” 

The secret of happiness, my brother, is to seek and 
find the regenerated heart that supremely loves God 
and mankind, and then do as you please. Life's 
work will then be a sweet service of love. This love 
is necessary to all Christian duty and privilege. 
Without it we cannot properly worship God; there¬ 
fore, “if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there 
rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee; 
leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; 
first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and 
offer thy gift.” The heart that properly worships 
God must be at peace with God and all mankind. 
We cannot pray with hatred in our heart. In the 
Lord's Prayer he hath set a trap for every one who 
entertains the least malice or hatred toward any one. 
“Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” 
“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who 
trespass against us.” If you do not truly and sin- 


180 THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 

cerely forgive all who have trespassed against you 
in any way, then instead of asking God’s forgiveness 
you ask for the reverse. You ask that he entertain 
for you the very feelings that you entertain for those 
who have trespassed against you. Beware, my 
brother, how you pray. Never take the Lord’s 
Prayer on your lips until you are in love and charity 
with the whole world. Love is the great uniting 
element; sin is the great disintegrating element. Sin 
separates from God, his Father, and separates from 
his brother. Love brings man into harmony with all 
mankind. In the band of stringed instruments there 
is a keynote, and to this all the instruments are tuned. 
There is harmony in music. An instrument out of 
tune is discordant with itself, and with all of the 
other instruments. God is the great keynote of the 
universe, and God is love. “Everyone that loveth 
is born of God, and knoweth God.” 

I was in a home once where a string band was giv¬ 
ing the most beautiful music. Dinner was announced 
and while the musicians were at dinner the children 
tampered with the strings. When they took up their 
instruments after dinner, there was a horrible dis¬ 
cord. The keynote was sounded, and all the in¬ 
struments were brought back into harmony, and that 
same sweet music was possible again. There was a 
time in the happy days of Eden when man loved God, 
and there was music everywhere; but Satan touched 
the harp strings of the human soul, and threw it out 
of harmony with the world and with God, and sin’s 
discord was sounded. Man was separated from his 
God, the blood of Abel cried out from the earth, and 
the discords of sin have filled the earth in all ages. 


LOVE YOUR ENEMIES 


181 


But Jesus Christ came on the earth, went up on 
Calvary, and struck the keynote. “As I have loved 
you, so love ye one another.” And every heart 
brought into harmony with Jesus Christ is in har¬ 
mony with the world and all mankind. The world 
is full of music when the heart is full of love. 

This command to love has several statements in the 
Bible. “Love one another.” “Love thy neighbor 
as thyself.” “Love your enemies.” I have chosen a 
command apparently most difficult to obey: “Love 
your enemies.” If you have ever done much in the 
world, you have made enemies. Every loyal, aggres¬ 
sive Christian makes enemies. “Marvel not if the 
world hate you.” Christ's enemies crucified him. 
The enemies of the apostles and early disciples im¬ 
prisoned, stoned, crucified, and burned them. Who 
is my enemy? He may be the one who hates me or 
he may be the one who would, under the cover of 
night, set fire to my house, who would slip up behind 
me and pierce me with a dagger, who would “take 
from me that which naught enriches him, but makes 
me poor indeed.” He may be that man who would 
do any and all manner of evil against me, and I am 
commanded to love him. No commandment in all 
the Scripture has given me more trouble than this. 
I do not bother over the mysteries of the Bible. The 
plain commandments are the portions of Scripture 
that give me trouble. For years I tried to love my 
enemy with an impossible love. Love is a big word, 
and has many elements. Love is a compound 
emotion, and cannot be driven. Love is involuntary. 
It comes out from the heart like the light from the 
sun, like water from the fountain, like fragrance from 


182 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


a flower. The nature of the heart gives it birth, and 
sends it forth. 

How, then, shall I love my enemy? There are 
some elements of love which in the nature of the case 
may not be exercised toward an enemy. Take the 
element of esteem. I met you a few days ago. You 
were not prepossessing. I saw you as we walked 
down the street stop and administer to the wants of a 
beggar; a little farther on I saw you kindly assist an 
aged man over the rough street crossing; a little 
farther along I saw the sweetest sympathy man¬ 
ifested for a suffering man; at your home I saw the 
little ones clamber about your neck, and heard your 
kind words to wife and children. Finally I said: “I 
love that man." Why? Because great and noble 
traits of character manifesting themselves at every 
turn of your way demanded my love. Again I meet 
this other man. His manner is pleasing and pre¬ 
possessing, and I am prepared to love him. But I see 
him turn his back upon a poor, deserving creature 
seeking alms. I see him jostle rudely out of his way 
an aged man. I see him turn his back upon half a 
dozen demands for sympathy and help. I overheard 
him stabbing the hearts of his wife and little ones 
with his cruel words. As I walked off of his doorstep, 
I said: “I do not like that man. He is low and 
vicious. I cannot esteem him highly; I do not believe 
God wants me to.” 

Again. There is a complacent element in love. I 
look upon a beautiful landscape, a lovely rose, a 
beautiful face, and I say I love flowers.-1 love beauti¬ 
ful landscapes, I love beautiful faces. Why? Be¬ 
cause they please me. Some things are in their very 


LOVE YOUR ENEMIES 


183 


nature pleasing; others in their very nature are dis¬ 
pleasing. I look upon a city sewer, a stagnant pond, 
and turn away in disgust. They are in their very 
nature displeasing. I cannot help loving beautiful 
flowers. I could not persuade myself to love a stag¬ 
nant pond. I meet a man; love, gentleness, meekness, 
and all the Christian virtues glow in all their beauty 
in his character. I see another man, false, vicious, 
unclean. I cannot help being pleased with the one; 
I cannot help being displeased with the other. And 
I express it by saying, “I love that character; I do 
not love the other.” 

There is another element of love, which we de¬ 
nominate gratitude. I will illustrate it. There is a 
three-story house on fire. All the family have 
escaped, they think. But upon examination they 
find that little Bessie has been left behind. Her 
chubby little hands and arms are stretched from the 
upper window, and she screams for help. Every 
stairway is cut off by the flames, which are rapidly 
enveloping the whole building. The father, looking 
upon the scene, cries: “All that I have will I give for 
the rescue of that child!” The mother joins by shout¬ 
ing: “All! All! All for the rescue of my darling!” 

Ladders are thrown against the building, but the 
brave men stand back. There is a little sailor boy in 
the crowd, who has been accustomed to mounting 
masts and scaling ladders. Fearlessly he leaps upon 
the ladder resting against the building, and up he 
goes until the flames from out the window fairly 
blister his body. Halfway up the ladder he hestitates, 
he pauses. “Three cheers for the sailor boy!” goes 
up from the crowd, and he goes to the window, throws 


184 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


his arms around Bessie, rapidly descends the ladder, 
and falls fainting at the feet of the excited father and 
mother of the little girl. They alternate in their 
kisses upon the ruddy cheeks of little Bessie and the 
tanned cheeks of the sailor boy. They adopt him 
into their family as their own son, and through all 
the coming years they know not whether they love 
most the rescued or the rescuer. What is this? It is 
gratitude. The warrior stops at the home gate, pats 
the withers of his dappled gray, and says: "Ho, 
fellow, I love you.” He has spanned ravines, he has 
leaped fences, created distances between him and the 
enemy, saved his life in half a dozen cases, and 
brought him safe at last to his home gate. He loves 
the horse. It is the love of gratitude. 

Some years ago I was sitting in the large armchair 
by our home fireside. I had just recovered from a 
long spell of typhoid fever, through which my tireless 
mother had sat almost constantly at my bedside. 
When they would say, "Mother, go to sleep,” she 
would reply: "I cannot sleep.” There are times 
when the good mother does not get sleepy. When 
they would say, "Mother, eat,” she would say: "I 
am not hungry.” There are times when a good 
mother does not get hungry. But the crisis had come 
and passed, and, convalescent, I was sitting by the fire, 
while she sat carefully guarding, lest in my weakness 
I should faint and fall from my chair. As I turned 
and looked into her anxious face, so careworn, I saw 
upon her temples the first gray hairs I had ever noticed 
in her head. I said: "Mother, I did not know you 
were turning gray.” She said: "I am not.” I said: 
" There are gray hairs on your temple.” Womanlike, 


LOVE YOUR ENEMIES 


185 


she went to the mirror and looked into it. And then, 
with a deep shadow upon her face, she said: “I had 
never noticed them before." Was it the long, 
anxious days and nights that she watched by my bed¬ 
side that turned those hairs to silver? I think so. 
Anyway, when I return from my various trips, and 
look into her dear old face, and see those hairs 
glistening upon those temples, I love my mother just 
as I love nobody else on God's green earth, and I 
am sure that God doesn't want me to love anybody 
as I love her. There are some kinds of love that 
cannot be exercised for every one. I am glad that 
God does not say, “Love your neighbor as you 
love your wife." I could not have done it. I am so 
glad that God does not say, “Love your neighbor as 
you love your mother." I could not have done it. 
I am so glad that God does not say, “Love your neigh¬ 
bor as you love your children." I could not have 
done it. I am so glad that he does not say, “Love 
your neighbor as you love your best friend." I 
could not have done it. God never commands a<n 
impossible thing. God does not demand of me the 
love of esteem for every creature. God does not 
demand of me the love of complacency for every 
creature. God does not demand of me that I love 
with the love of gratitude every creature. The love 
of esteem is called forth by estimable qualities; the 
love of complacency is called forth by pleasing objects; 
the love of gratitude is called forth by kind deeds. 
These elements of love are dependent upon things 
without me. But there is a love, the best love this 
old world ever knew: the love that God had when he 
gave his Son to die for me; the love that Christ had 


186 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


when he suffered on Calvary for me; the love that 
God demands of me toward every creature. It is 
the benevolent love; a wish-well love; the love that 
wishes everybody well, and wishes nobody harm; 
the love that when actively exercised “does unto 
others as I would want them to do unto me;” the 
love that, when properly exercised, leads me to do no 
harm to any one, but all the good that I can to 
every one. This love does not depend upon external 
objects, but goes gushing from a good heart like 
water from a fountain; goes out from a good heart 
like fragrance from a rose; goes from a good heart 
like light from the sun. It is the love that distin¬ 
guishes the sinner from the Christian, the man of 
God from the man of the world. It is that love that, 
when reviled, “ does not revile again.” It is that love 
that “returns good for evil.” It is that love that 
patiently wears the crown of thorns and wipes the 
rude spittle from the face. It is that love that cries 
out from the storm of stones, “Father, forgive them.” 
It is the love that, bleeding and dying on Calvary, 
cries out: “Father, forgive them; for they know not 
what they do.” It is the love which is the evidence 
of regeneration. I shall never forget the day when 
God, for Christ's sake, pardoned my sins; when the 
Holy Ghost regenerated me; when this love first took 
possession of my heart. The morning after my con¬ 
version I was working in the field with a heart as 
bright as the sun that shone overhead, and with a 
soul as happy as the birds that sang in the branches 
about me. As I looked toward the road, I saw riding 
along a neighbor boy with whom I had recently had a 
difficulty. I called to him to stop. I walked out to 


LOVE YOUR ENEMIES 1 


187 


him, and with hot tears upon my face I said: “Henry, 
last night God saved me. I am happy in his love 
this morning. I do not hate anybody. I love every¬ 
body. Won't you give me your hand and let us 
bury the past, and start up our friendship anew?" 
What made me do that? I was a new creature in 
Christ Jesus. A missionary told me that during a 
season of prayer, when a number of heathen were at 
the altar seeking Christ, one arose to his feet and, 
with a smile over his face, looked him in the face. 
“ Me love you. Me love you." He then looked into the 
face of the native converts and said: “Me love you. 
Me love you." He then lifted up both hands and said: 
“Yes, yes, me love everybody. Me love those that 
don't love me." When God regenerates a human 
soul and plants the divine love in it, whether he be 
an American, a Chinese, or an Indian, it is the same 
song of love. But if I love those that hate me and 
despitefully use me, where shall I seek redress of 
wrong? Shall I go through the world like a whipped 
spaniel, shrinking from all my enemies? No. The 
gospel of Christ is the science of manhood. It never 
demands from any man anything but the loftiest 
heroism and supreme courage. I have a contempt for 
a pusillanimous coward. But, thank God, a man 
doesn't have to be a rattlesnake, striking at every¬ 
thing that stirs a leaf or moves a branch in his 
neighborhood. He does not have to be a bulldog to 
bite, a mule to kick, or a town bully to cut and 
shoot and curse. The only perfect man who ever 
walked this earth was Jesus Christ, our Exemplar. 
He held the power of God in his right arm, and wiped 
the spittle of the enemy from his cheek. 


188 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


The fact that a man will shoot at the drop of a hat, 
will fight anybody upon the slightest provocation, is 
not proof of courage. It is oftener the evidence of a 
brutish man. He who is closest to the brute values 
least a human life. He who is farthest from the brute 
values most a human life. He who sacrifices a human 
life to a human passion values human passion higher 
than he values human life. The fact that a man is 
quick to fight is often proof that he is more afraid of 
public opinion than he is of God. He values a human 
life lower than he values a human passion. There 
is a foolish sentiment, mainly nourished in the South, 
that every insult is to be met with a human life. If 
one man call another a liar, he must pay for the insult 
with his blood. No more foolish and debasing practice 
ever existed among men. If a man call me a liar, 
I am either a liar or I am not a liar. If I am a liar, 
he simply states a fact which I ought to admit. If 
I am not a liar, then he is a liar, and if I should under¬ 
take to fight every liar in the country I should have 
a government job on my hands. There is no philos¬ 
ophy, nor religion, nor good breeding in courting a 
personal difficulty with every ill-bred scamp who calls 
you a liar. A noble old Englishman of my town, 
every inch a gentleman, was sitting in his office one 
day, when a neighbor entered, having become offend¬ 
ed at some business transaction. In the course of 
their conversation he abruptly turned to the English¬ 
man and said: “ Sir, you are a liar.” The Englishman 
calmly looked up into his face and said: “Sir, that is 
just your opinion expressed in your ill-breeding. I do 
not wish to continue a conversation with a man so 


LOVE YOUR ENEMIES 


189 


ill-bred as to talk that way in a gentleman's office." 
He turned to his desk and continued his writing. 

When a man wishes to fight me, one of three things 
is true: I have done him a wrong, he conceives that 
I have done him a wrong, or he is ill-tempered. If I 
have done him wrong, it is my business kindly and 
patiently to rectify the wrong. If he conceives that 
I have done him the wrong, when I have not, it is my 
business, either alone or with the assistance of others, 
to convince him of his error. If he is an ill-tempered 
fellow, I should be charitable, to say the least of it, 
too manly to get into a personal difficulty with such 
a man; I should avoid him as I would a vicious dog. 

A Christian man will accept an apology. A 
Christian man will not carry malice. A bully who 
poses as a brave man is often the biggest coward. He 
is not afraid of death and is not afraid of personal 
violence. In this he is like a Jersey brute or an ill- 
tempered cur. But he is afraid of public opinion. He 
is afraid of being called a coward. It takes more 
courage, often, to brook public opinion than to face 
a cannon. It takes more real courage to bear an in¬ 
sult than to resent it. When brought to the last 
analysis, nothing is so cowardly, so silly, so brutish, 
as fighting. 

A fight occurred among my neighbors once, in 
which the father was badly wounded. While the 
physicians were sewing up the wounds, I stood in the 
moonlight in the yard, with four of his sons. One of 
them said: “If my father dies, the other man must 
die." I said: “Hear me a few minutes. It is the 
mark of a good hunter not to waste his ammunition. 
If a gun is loaded for deer, it would be very silly to 


190 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


shoot at a wren. The game is not worth the powder. 
It would be very foolish to shoot at a lizard; the 
game is not worth the load. Let us see what you 
load with and what your game will be worth when 
killed, before you shoot. You must load your gun 
with a long lawsuit. You must load your gun with 
the happiness of your wife and children. You must 
load you gun with a heavy expenditure of money. 
You must load your gun with the blood of your 
fellow man. You must load your gun with a whole 
life of sorrow of his innocent wife and sweet children, 
who are in no way responsible. Put all these things 
into your gun and fire into your man, and when he 
lies dead at your feet, what is his dead body worth 
to you?” If you say that his streaming blood and 
the wail of his wife and the screaming of his children 
will feed a passion in your bosom, I say that is a bad 
passion. If you say, “ The man deserves death,” there 
is a just God who will attend to that. If you say, 
“He deserves punishment,” there are adequate civil 
laws to attend to that. “ But,” you may say, “where 
shall I seek revenge?” God hath said, “Vengeance 
is mine.” It is utterly impossible to find vengeance 
on earth. If you kill me, my oldest boy will kill 
you; your oldest son will kill him; the next relative 
on your side will kill on my side, and the next on my 
side will kill on your side, and let your bloody fight 
go on until the earth is baptized in blood and hell 
is peopled with suffering souls, and yet vengeance 
is impossible. 

Here is a picture. Two young men were in partner¬ 
ship. They were married men and had happy fam¬ 
ilies. For business considerations they dissolved 


LOVE YOUR ENEMIES 


191 


partnership. In the division of goods an altercation 
arose in which one called the other a liar. To 
satisfy the insult he jerked from his pocket a pistol 
and sent a ball through the head of his former friend 
and partner. With a dull thud he fell to the floor and 
the murderer was in the hands of the officers. A 
few hours later the murderer was locked in the cold 
iron prison, with his wife and children weeping and 
wailing on the outside. The wife of the other man, 
with her two little children, had just gone on a visit 
to her father. A telegram was sent: “Your husband 
was shot and killed this morning. Come home. ,, 
On receiving the telegram, a sad wail alarmed the 
neighbors, who gathered in to look upon the most 
pitiful creature and to hear the most pitiful wails J 
Ever and anon the suffering woman would say: “O, 1 
my happiness is ended! My happiness is ended 
And her sweet little children, tugging at her dress 
and crying piteously, “What is the matter, mamma? 
What is the matter, mamma?’’ received no answer 
but her sad wails. 

She dressed in mourning, came on the evening 
train to the scene of the tragedy, and was taken to' 
her home, which she had so recently left so full of 
joy and sunshine. As her feet touched the steps she 
looked up at the little vine-covered cottage and said: 
“0, you once sweet little home, you will never be 
home to me any more; you will never be home to me 
any more.” If you call that revenge, God knows that 
I do not want it. I want no vengeance taken from 
the hearts and lives of innocent women and helpless 
children. Hear this, my brother, whenever you shoot 
into a man, I care not where you hit the man, you! 


192 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


have hit some poor woman in the heart. Some 
mother's heart, some wife's heart, or some sister's 
heart will carry the bullet to the grave. When you 
stab a man, I care not in what part of his body your 
blade makes its incision, you stab some poor woman 
in the heart. There is no more cowardly and brutal 
act on earth than that which oppresses helpless 
women and children. And he who pulls his pistol 
from his pocket, fires into his fellow man, and conse¬ 
quently puts a bullet in the mother's, or wife's, or 
sister's heart, and crushes helpless women and 
children by his brutal act, may be called a brave 
man by the rabble who stand by and hear not the 
pitiful moans year after year that come from the 
wounded hearts of wife and mother and children; but 
I stand in my place to-day and say that he who shoots 
down his fellow man is a cowardly brute. 

Is it cowardly to suffer wrong for the innocent and 
helpless? Is it cowardly to suffer an insult from a 
brutal character? Is it cowardly to look with com¬ 
passion upon a man who would sacrifice a human life 
to a human passion? who thinks it is brave to fight? 
who thinks it manly to satisfy his passion with blood? 
I thank God that the highest and truest and bravest 
manhood is on a different plane. 

Here is my idea of a brave man. A preacher stood 
on the streets of my town one Sabbath afternoon and 
preached to a promiscuous crowd that had gathered 
about him. In the course of his sermon he said: “I 
would rather steal than sell liquor." Said he: “ When 
I give a man liquor for his money, I give him some¬ 
thing worth less than nothing. There is not a father 
in all the land who would not prefer that his son be 


LOVE YOUR ENEMIES 


193 


robbed rather than his money be exchanged for 
liquor. And then if I should steal a man’s money, I 
would leave his person intact, his character intact, 
and it would not incapacitate him for taking care of 
himself and making more money. But if I should sell 
him liquor, I get his money for something that is 
worth less than nothing; I hurt his character, I hurt 
his wife, I hurt his little children, I hurt his business, 
and I incapacitate him for making more money.’' 
Said he: "I would rather steal, I would rather steal.” 

The next day, walking down the street, a saloon 
keeper accosted him, and with the vilest oaths he 
assailed him. The preacher stood calmly and un¬ 
moved and, looking him straight in the eye, said: “I 
will have no personal altercation with you, sir. I 
fight a business, not a man.” The saloon keeper said: 
“If you pass by my door again, I will stamp you 
into the earth.” The preacher looked him square in 
the eye and said: “ I am going after my mail. This is 
my nearest way home. I shall be back here in 
fifteen minutes.” He secured his mail and calmly 
and deliberately walked by the door as he had done 
before. The cowardly saloon keeper stood in his door 
and looked upon a man who had the courage to speak 
his honest sentiments and to walk in the plain path 
of duty, fearing none but God. He who kicks at 
every dog that barks at him will have a sprained 
knee, his breeches torn, or wear dog-slobbers half the 
time. He who fights at the barking dog is very little 
bigger than the dog that barks. God has fixed a 
higher and better law, the practical working of which 
will show the world that he who made man made the 
law. 


13 


194 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


God's law is, “ Recompense no man evil for evil." 
“Love your enemies." “Bless them that curse you." 
“Do good to them that hate you, and pray for them 
which despitefully use you, and persecute you." And 
ye are commanded to do this that ye may be like your 
Father in heaven, who “maketh his sun to rise on the 
evil and on the good, and sendeth the rain on the just 
and on the unjust." 

He who follows the laws of Christianity follows the 
highest laws; and he who lives a Christian life lives 
the manliest life. And the God who commanded us 
to return good for evil fixed a law in the human heart 
by which this very act should heap coals of fire upon 
the enemy. God's law is, that when an enemy begins 
an aggressive course of wrong against us, turn to him 
a good heart, and it will become a sword wounding 
him in every thrust that he makes. I conclude with 
two illustrations. 

When I was at Emory and Henry College I heard a 
young man, whom I loved for his manliness and his 
gentleness, telling a joke at the expense of a young 
fellow who prided himself on his courage. He de¬ 
liberately walked up to him and, placing his fist close 
to his face, said: “You are a liar." I saw the blush 
mantle the cheek of my friend. A tear came to his 
eye as he got the reins of his spirit and, with superb 
self-control, held himself a moment. “He that 
ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city." 
He looked the young man in the face and said: “If 
you were a gentleman, sir, you would not act this 
way. Nothing short of a gentleman can insult me. 
If God will forgive your wickedness, I ought to for¬ 
give your insolence, and I do." He turned and 


LOVE YOUR ENEMIES 


195 


walked away to his room. I followed soon after. 
We were sitting together in his toom talking of how 
Christ bore the insults of the vicious, when there was 
a rap at the door. My friend said: “Come in.” 
When it opened, that same young man was at the 
door. The tears had swapped eyes. They had 
gotten over into his eyes. He said to my friend: “I 
did you a wrong to-day, and I have come to apologize.” 
My friend, with a smile on his face, extended his hand 
and said: “It is not necessary to apologize. It is all 
right. It is all right. Let it go.” I saw that young 
man bury his face in his hands and weep like a child. 
My friend had whipped him as he could not have 
done with all the hickory withes in the woods. There 
is something, even in the foulest natures, that re¬ 
sponds to a manly act. 

A little later a revival was started in the old college 
chapel. My friend stepped back in the audience and 
put his arm around this young man, and invited him 
to be a Christian. His words moved the heart of the 
young man, and he followed him to the altar. What 
we need to capture this old world for Christ is a few 
first-class samples of Christianity, a few men who can 
teach this old world to love as our Saviour loved and 
to suffer as our Saviour suffered. 

A Christian never has a finer opportunity to reveal 
Christ to the world than in a moment when he has 
been grossly insulted. In our Tennessee country, 
some years ago, two men were living on adjoining 
farms. A little creek divided their farms. On one 
side lived Mr. J., a Christian gentleman, and on the 
other side lived Mr. H., an ill-tempered sinner. It so 
happened that Mr. J.’s hogs got over the creek into 


196 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


Mr. H/s fields. Mr. H. saw them, became enraged, 
took his dogs and hands and went down to the field 
and dogged the hogs until he had torn their ears and 
fearfully abused them. 

After he had thrown the last one over the fence into 
the lane, he started back home cursing. Mr. J. had 
stood on a little hill overlooking the creek bottom, 
and had witnessed the whole scene. He turned 
quietly and walked back home, saying to one of his 
hands: “I am sorry my neighbor allows himself to get 
into such a mood. The poor hogs were not to blame. 
I would not have treated his stock that way.” But 
it is easier to talk than to act. 

It was not long until the hogs of Mr. H. got over 
into the fields of Mr. J. He saw them tearing to 
pieces a beautiful meadow. Mr. H. saw them at the 
same time. Mr. J. called his two grown sons, walked 
by the crib, put a few handfuls of corn in his pocket, 
and as they approached the hogs, he said to one of his 
sons, “ Open the fence that leads into the lane,” and 
unto the other son he said, “Get around the hogs 
and drive them this way.” At the same time he took 
a handful of the corn from his pocket, threw it to¬ 
ward the hogs, and began to say in a very kind tone, 
“Pig, pig, piguay.” Mr. H. having seen Mr. J. 
coming toward the hogs, and expecting his hogs to be 
treated as he had treated Mr. J/s, put his pistol into 
his pocket, walked down toward the two men, con¬ 
cealing himself behind a large dead tree, and was 
stirring the muddy caldron of his wicked old soul, 
talking to himself, and saying what he would do if 
his hogs were dogged. Mr. J. quietly led the hogs to 
the gap, and while his sons put up the fence he threw 


LOVE YOUR ENEMIES 


197 


down the remaining handfuls of corn to the hogs, re¬ 
marking to his sons that his neighbor “had some very- 
fine hogs.” Just as they started home Mr. H. stepped 
out from behind the tree and called: “Mr. J., stop 
there.” Mr. J. stopped. He walked up to him and 
said: “I feel like lying down in this road and letting 
you put your foot on my neck. I am not fit to be the 
neighbor of such a man as you are. If you will shake 
hands with such a man as I am, I want to promise 
you that I will make you a better neighbor, and I 
could not make you the neighbor I ought to make 
without the religion you have. And I want you to 
pray that I may be a Christian.” Mr. J. said: “ Why, 
neighbor, I have nothing against you. The Lord 
bless you, sir. I have been praying for you all these 
years and shall continue to do so.” It was but a 
short time until Mr. H. became a consistent member 
of the Church and a kind and accommodating neigh¬ 
bor. 

Brethren, let us teach this old world what Chris¬ 
tianity is by giving to it some living examples. Here 
is a picture. 

See that lion coming. Hear him roar. He fairly 
shakes the hills. A little child has escaped from the 
caravan, and a little lamb has wandered from the fold. 
They are in the track of the great old lion. See! See! 
He approaches the little lamb, with his great paw 
strikes it to the earth, and devours it. See how he 
approaches the little child, strikes it to the earth with 
his great paw, tears limb from limb, and devours it. 
Look at his fiery eye. Hear his awful roar. See his 
bloody teeth. What is that? That is a picture of 
human life following the laws of human nature. See 


198 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


that old lion. He comes again. He is the same old 
lion, in many respects, but we hear no horrible roar. 
His eyes look as gentle as old Rover's, and he walks 
as gentle as old Rover. See, in his shaggy mane are 
the fingers of a little child. Look, a little lamb walks 
by his side. See them come toward the gate. They 
have walked under the shadow of the tree. The old 
lion lies down lazily. See, the little child pillows its 
head upon its jagged mane. The lamb lies down at 
his feet. What is that? That is a picture of human 
nature redeemed by the blood of the Lord Jesus 
Christ. Where did I get that picture? I got it from 
this blessed old Bible. The old prophet looked 
down through the ages and saw the coming Christ, 
and he said in substance: “The lion and the lamb 
shall lie down together, and a little child shall lead 
them." 0, beautiful, childlike Christianity, put thy 
gentle hand upon the shaggy mane of our human 
nature, and lead us into the green meadows and be¬ 
side the still waters. 

0 thou blessed Lamb, come thou and walk with 
us, and grant that we, redeemed from the domination 
of wicked tempers and passions, may walk the earth 
in peace and gentleness. 


TEMPERANCE 
























TEMPERANCE* 

li Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth 
a city by iniquity! ... Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor 
drink, that puttest thy bottlb to him , and makest him drunken 
also. . . . The cup of the Lord's right hand shall be turned 
unto thee, and shameful spewing shall be on thy glory. For the 
violence of Lebanon shall cover thee, and the spoil of beasts, 
which made them afraid, because of men's blood, and for the 
violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein." 
(Habakkuk ii. 12, 15-17.) 

I HOLD in my hand the Word of God, and it is the 
source of the wisdom of God on all subjects: 
moral, social, business, and political. I take 
from this book to-night the statements of God con¬ 
cerning our nation. Two thousand years before 
the United States was discovered, before our nation 
was born, the great God made the statement in my 
text. Will you hear it? I read from Habakkuk ii. 
12, 15, 16, and 17. [See text above.] 

Many people think it wrong to lie, because God 
said: “Thou shalt not lie.” A great many people 
think it wrong to steal, because God has said: “Thou 
shalt not steal.” All Bible truth runs parallel with 
the existence of God. It has always been wrong to 
lie. It has always been wrong to steal. Woe and 
sorrow do not come upon a people who build their 
towns with blood and give their neighbor drink 

*This sermon was delivered at a Jones-Stuart meeting in 
Atlanta, Ga., in the nineties before an audience of five thou¬ 
sand men and three thousand women. 


( 201 ) 



202 THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 

*• 

because God says, “Woe unto them;" but it is the 
warning of God because the all-wise Being knew 
what would be the legitimate fruit of such doings. 
Woe and sorrow come naturally from the liquor traffic, 
like fruit grows on a tree. Two thousand years since 
God spoke these awful truths it turns out that every 
city in the United States has laid her pavements in 
the blood of her people, and that the United States 
has put her stamp upon her liquor bottle and pressed 
it to her neighbor's lips. And to-day God Almighty's 
truth is verified upon us, and woe and sorrow are 
upon us. If I should name the things that are most 
hurtful to American peace, happiness, and prosperity, 
and trace them back to their legitimate sources, I 
would locate them in the liquor barrels and beer kegs 
of America. 

What are the troubles that threaten us to-day? 
Says one, the spirit of anarchy, now so prominently 
mentioned in the press of our nation. Only a few 
years ago, this spirit was so dominant in the city of 
Chicago that three hundred armed policemen were 
called upon to dispel the meetings of anarchists, and 
every time they were found assembled in the upper 
rooms of the saloon. And that spirit is born in the 
saloon. Another great trouble in our country is our 
strikes and mobs, and when they become uncontroll¬ 
able in any city the first thing the mayor does is to 
order every saloon closed. He goes to the fountain 
from which the mob springs, and the only hope for 
life and safety is to stop the fountain. Again, we 
look to-day in the face of the most heinous and wick¬ 
ed corruption in our political life, and every man 
knows that the infernal liquor business is back of all 


TEMPERANCE 


203 


the political corruption, corrupting our officials and 
subsidizing our American ballot. The significant 
fact of closing the saloons on election day shows how 
dangerous they are, but why tie the mad dog after 
all are bitten? It is folly to talk of a free ballot and 
a fair count, when the brewers and distillers of the 
United States have throttled the country, and literal¬ 
ly bought our political leaders. 

Again a wail of woe, sad and pathetic, comes up 
from the poverty-stricken common people of our 
country. Never since the time when that little 
vessel landed on the American shore has there been 
such poverty and distress among the common people 
of our country. Ninety per cent of this poverty is 
traceable to the liquor traffic. 

Again, a wail of woe comes up from the widowhood 
and orphanage of our land. These widows and or¬ 
phans are the legitimate work of the barroom, to say 
nothing of the husbands and fathers murdered and 
ruined by the liquor traffic. Ninety per cent of the 
divorces of America are traceable to the saloon. It 
is unnecessary to recount the sorrow, woe, poverty, 
beggary, misery, distress, and bloodshed that have 
been the topics of the temperance speeches for the 
past century. It is needless to answer the questions: 
“Who hath sorrow? who hath woe? who hath red¬ 
ness of eyes?” Surely we look to-day upon the awful 
fulfillment of the words of God Almighty in my text. 
Woe unto the nation that buildeth her towns with 
blood, and that giveth her neighbor drink! The 
American people have never looked upon such a 
period in her history. Nothing but this monumental 
crime and the curse of God Almighty could bring us 


204 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


into such a condition, amid our fertile fields and 
waving harvests. Think of the wonderful resources 
of America; think of her brain and her brawn, and 
then think of her poverty. There seems to be no 
Moses to lead us forth. 

I walk up to Colonel Politics, whose blatant voice 
is heard throughout the land, and ask him, What is 
the matter with our country? Without looking up 
to his God or consulting his Bible, he answers: “It 
is the agitation of the silver question that is ruining 
this country.” “That,” says he, “is the momentous 
question of the age. That settled satisfactorily, 
prosperity will smile upon us.” Let us see if that is 
the question. Do you know how much silver there 
is in the United States? If I had on this platform 
every slick dime and quarter and half-dollar and 
dollar in the United States, do you know what it 
would make? A little over six hundred million 
dollars. How much gold coin have we? If you had 
every dollar dug up out of the banks and taken out 
of the hands of monopolists, and put into a pile, 
there would be a little over six hundred million 
dollars. Put all the silver money in the United States 
and all the gold money in the United States here in 
one pile, and what would it all make? A little over 
twelve hundred million dollars. Our drink bill for 
1895 was more than twelve hundred million dollars. 
We can pick up the whole bulk of our gold and silver 
coin and chuck it into a hole, and still the country 
moves on, and Colonel Politics would have us believe 
that if we shake the financial question a little the 
whole country will go to pieces. Yet, I say, we can 
throw away every dollar of coin in the United States 


TEMPERANCE 


205 


every year for liquor, and Colonel Politics doesn't 
consider the question worth discussing. Do you 
know why? Because the brewers and distillers of 
this country, into whose hands this twelve hundred 
million dollars goes, have bought our politicians like 
hogs are sold in the market, and have stopped their 
mouths and hushed their voices; but, thank God, 
there are some mouths not yet on the market! 

Again, I say, what is the matter with the country. 
Colonel Politics? The answer comes back: “The 
tariff question properly settled will bring prosperity.” 
Come with me to the customhouses of America, and 
write down every import into the United States at 
its ad valorem value, to say nothing of tax, and the 
whole business will not pay our liquor bill for one 
year. What is the matter with the country, Colonel 
Politics? The answer comes back: “Settle the na¬ 
tional bank question properly, and we shall have 
prosperity." I will go to the city of New Orleans and 
get every national bank in the city; I will go to New 
York and get every national bank; to Boston and 
get every national bank; to Chicago and get every 
national bank; to San Francisco and get every 
national bank; and will take every national bank 
in the United States, not leaving out one, and pile 
them down in one pile, every dollar of national 
bank stock in the United States, and the whole 
business will not pay our liquor bill for one year. 
All the national banks in the United States do not 
aggregate twelve hundred millions of dollars. When 
a few banks break in New York, and a few in Chicago, 
and a few in New Orleans, the whole country be¬ 
comes alarmed; yet we can throw our arms around 


206 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


every national bank in the United States, and chuck 
them into the whisky hole, and still the country 
lives. How can we live? Nothing but the almost 
infinite resources of America could have kept us 
from starvation during the past. But at last drink 
has blocked up the channels through which our 
resources flow, and our wheat and flour rot in the 
warehouses for want of a market, and the women 
crying for bread. I make no apology for dealing 
in the economics of this question to-night. When 
my Saviour, touched by the needs of the people, 
wrought miracles to alleviate the pain and the 
suffering, and multiplied the loaves and fishes to 
feed the hungry, I make no apology for discussing 
the bread question. I believe in a practical Chris¬ 
tianity that carries a Bible in one hand and a bread 
basket in the other. 

What is pure and undefiled religion? “Pure reli¬ 
gion and undefiled before God and the Father is 
this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their 
affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the 
world.” The way to visit the widow and the orphan 
is to come in time to help. Suppose as I pass down 
the street to-night, Brother Jones walking by my 
side, a man should rush up and draw a keen-bladed 
knife and stab me three or four times. After seeing 
me fall on the street, Brother Jones runs up and says 
to me: “Here, George, you can bleed on my silk 
handkerchief. Is there anything I can do for you? 
I will stay with you to-night and give you anything 
I have.” I would reply: “Nothing now, nothing 
now. You came too late. When the blade of that 
knife glistened above me, you ought to have caught 


TEMPERANCE 


207 


the arm and stopped the knife.” The infernal 
liquor traffic has its knife, crimsoned with the blood 
of millions, lifted above the homes of this country, 
and almost every hour of the day it comes down 
with fearful execution, and we follow up and help 
the widow and orphan in their affliction. The 
sensible thing to do is to grab the arm and stop the 
knife. Down with the infernal liquor traffic and its 
bloody daggers, which butcher the homes of our 
land. We have had theory long enough; the preach¬ 
ers and Churches of our land have gone down on 
record in their resolutions as opposed to the liquor 
traffic. God help us to get off the record now and 
go to work. The world is tired of a theoretical 
religion. It is ripe for a practical religion. 

Dr. John B. McFerrin, that grand character, 
reared in the mountains of Tennessee, with a char¬ 
acter as lofty and steadfast as the mountains among 
which he was reared, was General Bragg's chaplain 
on the battle fields of Chattanooga. On a chilly 
day in November he was walking over the 
battle field with his Bible in his hand, reading 
to the dying soldiers as they lay bleeding upon the 
field. He walked up to a wounded soldier and said: 
“Let me read to you.” The soldier replied: “0, 
chaplain, I am so thirsty! I am so thirsty!” If you 
were ever wounded, you will know what it meant. 
This practical old Christian man dropped his Bible 
by the side of the wounded man, ran off to the 
nearest water, carried it in his hat, and lifting up 
the head of the bleeding soldier, pressed the water 
to his lips. After he had drunk, the chaplain said: 
“Now, brother, let me read to you/ 5 The soldier 


208 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


said: “0, chaplain, I am so cold!” The chaplain 
doffed his light overcoat and put it about the 
wounded man, tucked it under as tenderly as a 
mother would tuck the bedclothing about her 
sleeping babe, and the wounded soldier, with tearful 
eyes, looked up into the face of the chaplain and 
said: “Now, chaplain, if there is anything in that 
book that tells what makes a Rebel chaplain treat 
a Yankee soldier this way, read it to me.” The world 
wants practical illustrations of our Christianity, 
and we will never reveal Christ to this old world 
until we mix our preaching and our prayers with 
bread and meat and clothing for the poor. And it 
is my object to-night to brighten the homes of the 
poor by turning this twelve hundred millions of 
dollars, burned up in liquor, into the homes of the 
poor drunkards' families that it may carry the 
necessities and comforts of life to them. But, says 
a man, money is money, and business is business, 
and when you spend money for liquor you are 
conducting a great business of our country, carrying 
on an important traffic, and the money is not burned 
up. 

Now, I am going to show you that it is burned up. 
Keep up with me. I do not ask that you have a 
first-class mind to see it. I can show it to a fellow 
with half sense. I will show you where the whisky 
money goes. Do you know how much it costs to 
make a gallon of liquor? Some of you ought to— 
you have drunk enough of it. You certainly know 
what it costs to get it. It costs about twenty cents 
a gallon to manufacture it. They used to sell it in 
my State for twenty-five cents a gallon. Do you 


TEMPERANCE 


209 


know what it sells for over the saloon counter at 
ten cents a drink? It sells for about four dollars a 
gallon, not taking into account the licorice and to¬ 
bacco and other devilment put into it. Now let 
us see where this four dollars comes from, and where 
it goes. If you would see where it comes from, 
stand at the door of a saloon and watch the men 
come and go. They are the laboring men, the 
mechanics, the wage earners, whose families need 
every cent of their wages. 

Now let us see where it goes. Twenty cents of 
the $4 goes for apples and corn and rye and other 
materials out of which the stuff is made, and to 
pay the few men used in the manufacture of the 
stuff. This goes back into the legitimate channels 
of trade. Five cents in the dollar, then, you see, 
goes back into legitimate trade. Where does the 
rest of it go? One large bulk of it goes to the United 
States Government to pay the great army of officers 
to look after this business and pay the other expenses 
of running this murderous and expensive traffic. I 
believe the United States Government ought to be 
supported from the luxuries of the rich and not by 
the bread and meat and clothing of the families of 
the poor. Another bulk of it goes into our big city 
corporations to pay extra policemen to take care 
of drunks and brawls and fights and to quell the 
mobs created by this traffic, and to lay the streets 
in front of the palaces of the rich. The poor rascal 
out there who cannot build a front gate to the cottage 
of his home is planking down his money on the 
counter of the saloon to pave the streets of the great 
cities. Another bulk of it goes into the hands of the 
14 


210 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


brewers and distillers of this country to make up 
the millions of dollars which are used by the great 
liquor organizations of this country to buy our 
politicians and lawmaking bodies, to subsidize the 
American ballot, and to dig down the very pillars 
of American liberty. The meat and bread and 
comforts of the poor drunkard's cottage are turned 
into the corrupting fund of our country. Another 
bulk of it goes into the hands of the thousands of 
diamond-studded gamblers, who, with velvet hands 
and elegantly clad bodies, have their rooms in the sa¬ 
loon buildings of this country, who do not work, but 
gather up the money of the saloon crowd and buy 
their clothes, their diamonds and their fine horses, 
with the bread and meat of the poor. No wonder 
the middle classes of this country are in such a 
distressed condition to-day. Take a family of four 
boys; let three of them be hard-working boys, and 
one an idler and a gambler; and if the gambler 
comes in touch with the money of the other three 
he will wreck the whole family. The poor, hard¬ 
working fellows who frequent the saloons are support¬ 
ing these idle gamblers. You see this money is 
going out of the hands of the common people; they 
are the material out of which the prosperity of this 
country is built. The world is like a pie. The upper 
crust is brittle and unreliable, and the under crust is 
soft and smutty, but the goody is in the middle. 
I believe in the middle classes of our country, and 
it is from this class that the saloon is drawing its 
money. 

I hold in my hand a silver dollar. That you may 
see clearly what I mean, I will spend this money 


TEMPERANCE 


211 


before your eyes. I drop it on this table and call 
it a saloon counter. That dollar buys a quart of 
liquor. Now I will take the saloon end of that dollar, 
and then I will take the home end of it, and see what 
becomes of the dollar. I will say my name is John, 
I am a poor drunkard, with a wife and six children. 
Thank God it is a lie! I am only illustrating. It is 
my dollar lying on the counter. I get the quart 
of liquor, and the saloon gets the dollar. Now 
come with me down the saloon side, and we will see 
where the dollar goes. As I have shown you, five 
cents of it goes back into legitimate trade; and the 
ninety-five cents remaining is distributed to the 
United States Government and to the big city corpo¬ 
rations and big brewers and distillers and the dia¬ 
mond-studded gamblers of this country, and nearly 
all of it, as you see, is drawn out of the hands of the 
common people, and does not come back. So far 
as the masses of the people are concerned, that 
money is gone. Now let us take the home end of it. 
I drink the quart of liquor and start home to the 
drunkard's cottage. My wife, Sallie, meets me at 
the door, surrounded by her hungry, wretched 
children, and says: “John, what did you bring 
home?" “ I brought you a quart." Now if the ladies 
in the audience will pardon me, I wish to ask what 
the quart of liquor in the poor drunkard's stomach is 
worth. I say that the dollar is burned up at the 
home end; not only is the liquor worth nothing to 
the poor old drunkard's home, but it burns up his 
body, burns up his mind, burns up his soul, destroys 
the happiness of his wife and children, ruins his 
business or trade, disqualifies him for making another 


212 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


dollar, hurts the community, hurts everything. Do 
you see where the saloon dollar goes? 

I will spend this dollar again. I now drop it on 
the counter of a legitimate business, say the shoe 
store. I buy a pair of shoes, and the shoe merchant 
gets my dollar and I get the shoes. Let us take 
the shoe end and the home end of this dollar, and 
see where it goes. The dollar is dropped on the mer¬ 
chant's counter. A little of it goes to the home 
merchant, a little of it goes to the wholesale mer¬ 
chant, a little of it goes to the man who made the 
shoes, a little of it goes to the man who blacked the 
leather, a little of it goes to the man who tanned the 
leather, a little of it goes to the man who skinned the 
calf, and a little goes to the man who raised the 
calf; and from the store counter to the calf-lot that 
dollar distributes itself in blessings to the poor. Like 
one of our mountain streams, it gladdens and blesses 
wherever it touches. 

Now let us take the home end of it. Remember 
I am still John, the drunkard, with six children and 
Sallie at home. What is the pair of shoes worth in 
the drunkard's hands? It is worth one dollar. 
Why? Because my boy John can put these shoes 
on his feet, and with them earn another dollar to 
pay for another pair of shoes. That dollar, like a 
silver thread in the shuttle of business, is woven 
into the industry of our country and helps to make 
our prosperity. That dollar never dies. But let us 
come home with that pair of shoes; it adds to the 
comfort, it adds to the health, and it adds to the 
happiness of the little cottage home. 

Now let me spend this dollar again. I am still 


TEMPERANCE 


213 


John, the drunkard. I will spend one-third of it for 
meat, one-third of it for flour, and one-third of it 
for calico. Now when I do that let us suppose that 
the millions of drunkards in the United States join 
me, and we together spend the twelve hundred 
million dollars which is now spent for liquor. How 
much would that be in each of these articles? Four 
hundred millions of dollars for meat would buy 
every steer in the United States at a good price, four 
hundred million dollars for flour would buy all the 
flour produced in the United States at a good price, 
four hundred million dollars for calico would buy 
every bale of cotton in the United States at $50 a 
bale. Suppose we look at the practical results of 
this business for a moment. Come, all ye American 
drunkards, come with me to the meat market. Let 
us divide up ourselves in the city of Atlanta so there 
will be no more than two or three hundred of us at 
each beef market this evening. Let us march up 
to the market and call for meat. “I want a steak;” 
"I want a steak;” “I want a steak;” “I want a 
steak.” The beef man, as he hurriedly cuts the last 
piece of meat in the house, looks up at the pressing 
crowd and says: “What is the matter? All my 
meat is gone and a hundred men wait.” He runs to 
the telephone and calls to the stockyard, and while 
he is ringing every beef market in the city is ringing 
for the stockyard. Each one calls out to the stock- 
man, “Send more beeves;” “Send more beeves;” 
“Send more beeves;” “Send more beeves.” The 
stockman excitedly shouts: “What is the matter?” 
“Nothing, only the liquor money is going for meat.” 
In every city in the United States the same thing 


214 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


has happened, we will say. The stockyards send 
out their men through the country on horseback, in a 
gallop, to buy beeves to meet the demands. Every 
few miles a stockman meets another and says: 
“Hello, where are you going? 1 ’ “Buying cattle;” 
“Buying cattle;” “Buying cattle;” “Buying cattle.” 
And this chorus rings through the country. The 
old farmer catches the chorus, and smiles as he sees 
his cattle reaching a price at which he can afford to 
raise them. From the beef market we all go to the 
grocery store and order flour. “Send up a sack of 
flour;” “Send up a sack of flour;” “Send up a sack 
of flour;” “Send up a sack of flour.” And as the 
groceryman throws down his last sack of flour and 
sees the fifty men waiting for a sack of flour, he says: 
“What is the matter?” Every groceryman in the 
city telephones to the mills: “Send up a wagonload 
of flour;” “Send up a wagonload of flour;” “Send 
up a wagonload of flour;” “Send up a wagonload of 
flour.” The mills cry back: “What is the matter?” 
And the answer comes: “The liquor money is going 
for flour.” The wheat buyers are sent out through 
the country, singing in the chorus, “Bringing in the 
sheaves,” while the sickle of the busy farmer plays 
the accompaniment, and the farmers of the country 
are the smiling auditors as they realize that they are 
to have a good price and a ready sale for their wheat. 

Next we all go down to the dry goods store and 
begin to order calico: “Give me calico;” “Give me 
calico;” “Give me calico;” “Give me calico.” And 
as the merchant cuts off the last piece of calico and 
looks at the store full of men waiting, he rushes to 
the telegraph office and wires the wholesale house to 


TEMPERANCE 


215 


send him more calico. The wholesale man comes 
into his office, and there is a stack of telegrams from 
every section of the United States, and he begins to 
read the telegrams. And they read: “Send calico;” 
“Send calico;” “Send calico;” “Send calico.” He 
wires to the cotton markets of the South, and as his 
message goes through, all the wholesale buyers send 
messages through the South to “Buy cotton;” 
“Buy cotton;” “Buy cotton;” “Buy cotton.” And 
all the cotton of the South finds a ready market at a 
good price. An advance in cotton means an advance 
in hogs and mules and wages, and this means pros¬ 
perity to the middle classes. As the price of meat, 
flour, and cotton advances prosperity comes to the 
country. To turn the pro rata of this twelve hundred 
million dollars into manufactures and into all of our 
industries, as it would naturally go, every idle wheel 
would buzz and every idle man would have a job. 
The saloon takes only a man, and the dry goods store 
takes five; the saloon takes one man, and the sawmill 
takes ten; the saloon takes one man, and the cotton 
mill takes a hundred. Stop the saloons and turn the 
money into legitimate business, and there would not 
be men enough in the United States to run the shops 
and stores and factories. The cry would be, “Give 
us men;” and not the everlasting cry, “Give us a 
job.” 

But let us take the home end of this twelve hundred 
million dollars spent for meat and flour and calico. 
I got my part of it, and I am poor John, the drunkard. 
Home I go. Wife meets me at the door and says: 
“John, what have you brought?” I reply: “Sallie, 
you have been as good a wife to me as any man ever 


216 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


had. We have as good, sweet children as ever 
blessed a home. I have turned all your comforts 
into the saloon for the past ten years, but I have 
quit. We are going to have meat at our house. 
We are going to have biscuits. Sallie, take this calico 
and make little John and Jim two or three changes 
of calico waists. Make little Mary and Annie some 
new calico dresses. My home shall be fed and clothed 
these incoming years and you and the children shall 
be happy.” With tears and smiles she embraces me, 
and the little children crawl about my lap and put 
their little arms about my neck, and the poor drunk¬ 
ard's home, once so starved and wretched and deso¬ 
late, is now bright and happy. Don't tell me that 
we are suffering from overproduction, when the 
orphan millions of our United States call for bread 
and meat and clothes and shoes. We are not suffer¬ 
ing from overproduction, but we are suffering from 
underconsumption. 

The drunkards' wives and children of this country 
need the necessities and comforts which are burned 
up in the saloon every year. Their comforts lie on the 
counters of the stores and the groceries; their bread 
lies rotting in the great warehouses of this country, 
while the twelve hundred millions that ought to 
command these comforts pour down into the saloon 
hole and drunkards' families cry for bread. 

Going through one of our Southern cities, I saw 
tacked against many a little cottage and shop a little 
board on which was written: “For Rent.” On every 
street I went I read the words: “For Rent,” “For 
Rent.” I said to myself: “Our people have all gone 
North.” Going up the streets of New York, I read 


TEMPERANCE 


217 


those little words: “To Let,” “To Let.” I said: 
“They have gone to the Northwest.” I went down 
the streets of Chicago, and I read the words: “To 
Let,” “To Let.” I said: “They have gone to the 
Southwest.” Going up and down the streets of Gal¬ 
veston, Tex., I read the words: “For Rent,” “For 
Rent.” I said: “Where are the folks? Gone to 
heaven, I guess.” I take a pick and begin to dig 
under those little words, “For Rent,” and here is 
what I find: [He raps two or three times on the table 
with his knuckles, imitating some one knocking at 
the door.] The wife within says: “ Husband, some one 
is knocking at the door.” The husband, at the door: 
“Why, Mary, my child, where did you come from? 
And here are little John and little Bess. God bless 
you! How tired you look! Where did you come 
from?” The woman bursts into tears, and says: 
“Papa, please don’t scold me. John drank, drank, 
drank; he did not attend to the store. He became 
involved in his business, and they closed him out. 
Out of employment, and drunk in the streets, he was 
arrested. I sewed for our rent as long as I was able. 
But they came and took my furniture for the rent, 
and turned us out into the street. I didn’t know any¬ 
where to go, so I had to come home. Please, papa, 
don’t scold me.” Putting his arm around his suffer¬ 
ing child, he said: “God bless you, my darling! Papa 
will not scold you. Come in with the little ones. 
Take the room you used to occupy, with the little ones, 
and eat at papa’s table.” And there is a little store 
for rent and a little cottage for rent. Can you see it? 
Five months passed, and late in the evening another 
rap is heard at the door. “Mary,” says papa, “I 


218 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


hear some one knocking at the door.” The father 
goes. “Why, Annie, my precious child, where did 
you come from?” “Papa, please don't scold me. 
Bob drank and drank until he lost his job on the 
railroad, and I don't know where he is. I tried to 
work and pay the rent, and to buy bread for my little 
ones. I stood it as long as I could; but we were 
turned out of the home, and I had to come home.” 
“God bless you, my child! Papa will not scold. 
Take the room opposite your sister's. Papa will do 
the best he can for you.” And there is another cot¬ 
tage for rent. Drunkards, drunkards, drunkards. 
Homes for rent, shops for rent, stores for rent. Come 
into our cities and look for our drunkards' families, 
literally packed down in these tenement flats—a 
whole family in one room, and living in squalor and 
poverty. Little women working their very fingers off 
running their sewing machines, until every bone in 
their entire body aches, while their drunkard hus¬ 
bands pour their money over the saloon counter. 
Take those women and children and put them into 
happy little cottages and turn the wages of their hus¬ 
bands from the saloon to the markets and the stores, 
and there would not be a house for rent in the United 
States. 

While Sam Jones and I were preaching in Houston, 
Tex., a few months ago, I made this statement in 
reference to rents. The pastor of the Methodist 
Church said: “0 George, your speech about rents 
called to the minds and hearts of these people that we 
have just had it sadly illustrated. The daughter of 
one of our preachers married a good man, who, after 
his marriage, began to drink. He lost his business, 


TEMPERANCE 


219 


and walked the streets of this city a drunkard. His 
wife was a member of my Church. I often visited 
her. I saw the blue veins on her face and her tearful 
eyes as she said: '0 brother, the rent-paying haunts 
me like a nightmare. I have to sew till nearly mid¬ 
night to make the rent and pay for the little 
that my half-starved children eat. My husband 
came in and found me sewing at nearly midnight the 
other night, and he said if he caught me sewing again 
that late he would kill me. But, 0 brother, I am 
obliged to sew.’ ” The preacher told me that he had 
seen the little woman at one of the preliminary meet¬ 
ings at the tabernacle. And the last song they sang 
at the tabernacle was: “We’ll never say good-by in 
heaven.” That very night, possibly making up the 
hour she had lost at the service, she was found by her 
husband stitching away at midnight, thinking of rent! 
Rent!! Rent !!! Staggering into the room, wild with 
drink, he said: “I told you I would kill you.” Bang! 
Bang!! Bang!!! Three balls tore their way through 
her quivering flesh. As her little children came 
screaming around her, she sent her little boy for the 
preacher. “And,” said the preacher to me, “as I 
stooped over her dying body, she whispered, as her 
lifeblood ebbed away: ‘We’ll never say good-by in 
heaven; and, thank God! there will be no rent to pay 
up there.’” This is but one of almost daily occur¬ 
rences throughout the land. Shall we men, who hold 
the ballot of our country and the destinies of these 
poor women in our hands, suffer such cruelties year 
after year? God Almighty help us come to the rescue 
of our suffering women! 

Let me borrow an illustration. I have heard so 


220 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


much and read so much along this line that I hardly 
know what is original The truth is, I don't care 
much about originality, anyhow. There is so little of 
it in the country. If the bishop should be standing at 
my front gate with his gold-headed walking stick, 
and a mad dog were to run up, I would jerk that cane 
out of his hand and break it into pieces over the mad 
dog; and if the bishop should say, “George, you have 
used my cane,” I should say: “Thank God, I have 
killed the mad dog.” In fighting this mad dog of hell, 
whose poisonous fangs are piercing our homes, I 
don't ask where I shall get a stick; I pick up anything 
I come across that will do the work. But let me give 
you this illustration: Here are four American ma¬ 
chines. Look at them. The first is a sawmill, the 
second a gristmill, the third a paper mill, the fourth 
a gin mill. Let me ask them some questions. “Hello, 
sawmill, what is your power?” “Steam or water.” 
Turn it on and let the wheels buzz. “What is your 
material?” “Logs.” “What is your manufactured 
article?” “Lumber.” “Lumber worth more than 
logs?” “Yes, sir.” “Then you take the raw mate¬ 
rial and manufacture it into an article worth more 
than the raw material?” “Yes.” “Then you create 
values?” “Yes.” “You are a good machine. We 
will put our arms around you, and preserve you as 
an American industry with honor.” “Hello, little 
machine, what are you?” “I am a gristmill.” 
“ What is your power? ” “ Steam or water.” “ Turn 
on the power. Let us hear the music of the wheels, 
the creak, and the creaking old mill, Maggie. What 
is your raw material?” “Wheat and corn.” “What 
is your manufactured article?” “Flour and meal.” 


TEMPERANCE 


221 


“Flour and meal worth more than wheat and corn?” 
“Yes.” “Then your manufactured article is worth 
more than the raw material?” “Yes.” “Then you 
create values, and we will put our American arms 
around you and protect you as an American in¬ 
dustry of honor.” “Hello, little machine, what are 
you? ” “lama paper mill.” “ What is your power? ” 
“Steam or water.” “What is your raw material?” 
“ Old rags.” “ What is your manufactured article? ” 
“Linen paper.” “Linen paper worth more than 
rags? ” “ Yes. ” “ Then take your place with Amer¬ 
ican industries.” “Hello, machine, what are you?” 
“I am a gin mill.” “Look here, I have not much 
confidence in you. You may have to have witnesses 
to what you say. What is your power? ” “ The votes 
of the Church people of this country.” “Shut up.” 
“Yes, Stuart, that's right,” says the gin mill. “You 
ask some of these men. The very day that all the 
Methodists and all the Baptists, to say nothing of all 
the other denominations, shall cease to vote for me, 
that day I stop, stock still, never to go again.” [Mr. 
Stuart turned on the platform and asked all the min¬ 
isters: “Brother, is this so?” “Yes, sir.” He turned 
to the audience and said: “Everyone that says this is 
so, answer yourself.” And a great cry of “Yes! yes! 
yes!” came from all parts of the tabernacle.] “I had 
to have a great deal of evidence to believe what you 
say. But they have put it down on me. I must be¬ 
lieve it.” The power of the saloon is the votes of the 
Church people in this country; they hold the balance 
of power. “Turn on your power, ye members of the 
Church of Christ. Start your infernal machine. Run 
it day and night, week day and Sabbath. But what 


222 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


is your raw material? ” [Mr. Stuart called three little 
boys to the platform, put his arms around them, and 
stood a moment while the audience applauded.] 
“What is your raw material, I ask?” “Our Ameri¬ 
can boys.” 

A young man was shot down in the streets of 
Atlanta some time ago. He was drinking. The man 
who shot him was drinking. In his pocket was found 
a list containing the names of eighty-five young men. 
On the paper was written: “These young men, to my 
knowledge, during the past few years have gone to 
their graves by liquor in Atlanta, Ga.” Why are 
these little boys better than the eighty-five? They 
were mothers' boys, once as sweet and as innocent as 
these. How much depends upon whose boys you 
take! 

When preaching in Austin, Tex., I called a little 
boy to the platform. After my sermon was over, the 
pastor of the Methodist Church said: “George, do 
you know whose boy you called to the platform for 
your illustration?” “No,” said I. “He was the boy 
of the bookkeeper of the biggest wholesale liquor 
house in town.” That night, in our gospel meeting, 
a man came weeping to the altar and said: “I am the 
man whose boy you had on the platform this after¬ 
noon. Pray for me, that I may be a Christian.” 
Brother, when it gets your boy, you will be a Prohi¬ 
bitionist. 

When I made the liquor fight at Monroe, La., I 
stopped at the home of a banker. After my speech 
one night the house of the banker was set on fire— 
and here let me say that the men back of this infernal 
liquor traffic will do anything to stop the fight and per- 


TEMPERANCE 


223 


petuate their nefarious business. During my liquor 
fight in Tennessee they burned down my two barns 
with my buggies and my horses, and any man in this 
country who takes up the liquor fight takes his life in 
his hands. An old friend of mine came to me and said: 
" George, this fight ought to be made; but the people 
of your town love you, and do not want to see your 
property burned up. Let somebody else do the work 
in your State.” I said to him: "Wife and I have 
talked the matter over, and we are willing that they 
shall bum our property, and when the cause needs it, 
burn us too; but they will never hush my voice nor 
check my effort. The victory over this infernal traffic 
must rest on the ashes of martyrs, and we may as well 
begin.” But to my illustration. The liquor men set 
fire to the banker's house in which I was stopping. 
The cry of fire was heard. He went to the telephone, 
which was near my sleeping room. His voice was as 
soft as a woman's. He called up central. "Central, 
can you tell me where the fire is?” When told that 
she thought it was the cotton compress, he replied: 
"Thank you, Central.” But going to his rear door 
and opening it, the flames were leaping from his own 
building. He threw up both hands and screamed at 
the top of his voice: "My God, wife, it is our house! 
It is our house afire!” The wildest excitement pre¬ 
vailed. The good fire company, however, saved us 
from much damage. The next morning I said: "My 
friend, when you thought it was the other man's 
house afire, it was, ‘Central, where is the fire?' in the 
softest tones and the most indifferent way; but when 
you realized that it was your own house afire, how 
different your conduct!” When the liquor fire 


224 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


touches your home, you will be aroused to this sub¬ 
ject. Here are somebody's boys. 

“These boys?" “Yes, yes, yes, yes." “Turn on 
your power." “Give me these boys." But listen. 
What is that I hear? A man from the audience cries: 
“Not that boy; he is my boy." But who are you? 
This is an American institution, and she has got to 
run. What care we for homes and hearts and lives? 
“ Give me this boy." What is that I hear? Another 
cry? It is a mother: “Not that boy; he is the joy of 
my home and the light of my life." “Shut your 
mouth. Who are you? What are American women 
and children? This is an American institution, and 
she has got to run. If it takes millions of boys an¬ 
nually from the hearts and homes of our land, she 
has got to run. Give me that boy." “Turn on your 
power." Grind! grind!! grind!!! There is your manu¬ 
factured article, body, mind, and soul ground up. 
There it is. What is it? A drunkard. Who is the 
drunkard? Mother's darling boy. What is he fit for? 
The railroads won't use him. The stores won't use 
him. Mechanics won't use him. He is a blight to 
society and a burden on the home. What is he fit 
for? A few of them are occasionally used in politics, 
but, thank God, the day is nearly past when liquor- 
soaked bloats can be elected to the offices of our 
land. 

I lift up this poor drunkard, the manufactured 
article of the saloon, and ask him again: “Of 
what were you made?" “Of a bright American 
boy, a boy capable of earning daily wages and 
adding to the wealth of the home and the coun¬ 
try." “What are you worth?" “Nothing. I am 


TEMPERANCE 


225 


a burden to the home and the State and the coun- 
try.” “Drunkard, what made you?” “The saloon 
over there made me.” “Saloon, what made you?” 
“The law over there made me.” “Law, who made 
you?” “That legislator over there made me.” 
“Legislator, who made you?” “The ballot in the 
hands of the Churchman over there made me.” 
“Churchman, did you cast the ballot that made the 
man that made the law that made the saloon that 
made the drunkard?” “Well, I always stick to my 
party.” “That is not the question I asked you, sir. 
Did you vote for the man that voted for the law that 
made the saloon that made the drunkard?” “Yes. 
He represented my party, and I never scratch the 
ticket.” Take this picture, my fellow-citizens; here 
is a chain with the following links: a drunkard, a sa¬ 
loon, a law, a legislator, and a voter—five links. Do 
you see it? “Poor drunkard, where are you going?” 
“To hell.” “How do you lmow?” “The old Book 
says: ‘No drunkard shall enter the kingdom of 
heaven.’” “Poor fellow, would to God I might save 
you.” I go to the top of the chain. “Churchman, 
where are you going?” “I am going to heaven.” 
“How do you know?” “About forty years ago the 
Lord took my feet out of the mire and clay and placed 
them upon the Rock, and put a new song”—“Shut 
your mouth; shut your mouth. You miserable hypo¬ 
crite, I have a contempt for such twaddle.” 

Let every man hear this statement. If the lower 
link goes to hell and the upper does not; if the poor 
old drunkard goes to hell and the Churchman who 
voted for the saloon that made him do not go with 
him, then the drunkard can stand on the black- 
15 


226 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


crested waves of damnation and cry, “Unjust, unjust, 
unjust,” until he will tear down the pillars of heaven. 

In my fight against the saloon in Weatherford, 
Tex., the courthouse was packed with men. I was 
representing the work of the gin mill to them. The 
ladies had prepared some flowers for the table. One 
of the brightest features of my fight against the liquor 
traffic is that, though there are storms and dangers 
in the battle I fight, my battle is for helpless women 
and innocent children, and at every turn of the march 
I meet the flowers of their gratitude strewn along my 
pathway. I represented the sawmill with a bouquet, 
the gristmill with a bouquet, the paper mill with a 
bouquet. I said: “I do not want to represent the 
saloon with a bouquet of flowers. Its mission has 
been to destroy the brightest flowers of earth. Will 
some one lend me something by which I can rep¬ 
resent this gin mill?” A gentleman took from 
one of the lamps a smoky lamp chimney, and 
handed that to me. After running the boys 
through this gin mill, and crushing their mind 
and soul and body, I held the smoky chim¬ 
ney up in my hand and asked the audience: 
“ What shall I do with it? ” A great big fellow, whose 
precious boy had been ground up in the gin 
mill, rose to his feet, with tears streaming down 
his face, and cried: “George, bust her!” The 
audience applauded. I held it a minute and 
asked again: “What shall I do with it? It is 
your institution.” Twenty or thirty gentlemen 
yelled in concert: “Burst it!” I saw that the fire 
was catching from man to man, held the chimney a 
moment in my hands, and cried again, “Fellow- 


TEMPERANCE 


227 


citizens, what shall I do with it?” and the entire 
audience screamed until they almost lifted the roof 
of the house, “Bust her!!” I turned to a post near 
and struck the lamp chimney against it, breaking it 
into a thousand pieces. I never heard such a yell go 
up from an audience, and as I stamped the pieces of 
glass beneath my feet I screamed myself like a Co¬ 
manche Indian, for it seemed to me that the cracking 
of the glass beneath my feet was but a prophecy of 
the day when the American people will dash the 
saloon to the earth and tramp it back to the hell from 
which it came. A telegram a week later announced 
the fact that Weatherford had carried for prohibition. 

“But,” says a man, “we must operate this traffic 
to aid us in paying our taxes.” Have you never 
learned that the saloon has never paid its way, that 
the expenses to run it are more than the taxes derived 
from it? But if it were a fact that immense revenues 
were obtained from this traffic, the fathers and moth¬ 
ers of America are not yet willing to barter their boys 
for taxes. 

Among our mountains some years ago there lived 
a man who made a living by catching rattlesnakes. 
The reason he could thus make a living was that all 
the fools are not yet dead. He caught rattlesnakes 
and put them in boxes and covered them with glass 
and exhibited them on his front porch upon the pub¬ 
lic road, and sold them to curiosity hunters. This 
mountaineer had one child, a fat-faced, chubby- 
handed, sweet little child he called Jim. He always 
met him on his home-coming at the front gate. The 
old mountaineer, when not bringing home a rattle¬ 
snake, would gather him in his arms and kiss his 


228 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


chubby face. He could taste the sweetness of his 
boy's cheek through the heavy layer of dirt. Jim was 
the most precious object on earth to him. He 
brought a rattlesnake from the mountains one day, 
placed it alive in the glass-covered box, slipped the 
lid over it, and stepped out to the woodpile to chop 
some wood. Little Jim came up to the glass-covered 
box, pulled back the lid, and, with his chubby little 
hands, pulled the live reptile on the lap of his little 
linsey dress. The snake planted his fangs in the 
cheek of the little fellow while he screamed: “Papa! 
papa!! papa!!!" The father, hearing his cries, ran 
with ax in hand, slipped the handle of the ax into the 
coils of the snake, threw it into the yard, and chopped 
its head off. Gathering little Jim in his arms, he 
began to cry: “Jim's dead! Jim's dead!" His neigh¬ 
bor Tom, hearing the cry, ran over to his cabin home. 
As the little boy lay on his mother's lap, his body 
swelling and his eyes bloodshot, the mountaineer 
said to his neighbor: “Tom, little Jim is going to die, 
and I would not give little Jim for every rattlesnake 
on these old mountains and for every dollar I have 
made off of them." Brother, we have got the serpent 
of the still, and put him in our glass-front saloons for 
the hope of the revenue. But our boys have stepped 
off the home steps and walked down into the glass- 
front saloon, pulled this serpent upon their hearts 
and lives, and the great cry comes up from all the 
earth to-day: “My boy is gone! My boy is gone!" 
I never look into the bloated face or bloodshot eyes 
of a drunkard American boy that I do not say in my 
heart: “I would not give that one American boy for 
every dollar we have made off the infernal stuff." 


TEMPERANCE 


229 


A widow with two noble young boys traded her 
country home for a cottage in one of our towns. The 
cottage was near a little shoe shop, where the honest 
workman plied his honest trade to the hurt of nobody. 
These boys went and came in their daily toil, and 
were innocent and happy about the cottage door of 
their widowed mother. But a saloon took the place 
of the shoe shop, and the music in the saloon attracted 
these boys. For a while they stood on the outside 
and listened, then they stood on the inside, then the 
saloon got on the inside of them, and you know the 
old story. The mother wept over her drunken boys. 
The oldest, intoxicated on the public square, picked 
a quarrel with a man, drew his knife and started 
toward him, and was shot down on the street. They 
carried his bleeding body to his broken-hearted 
mother. It was but a short time until the other boy 
came to his death through that same saloon. And 
the widow joined the great army of suffering mothers 
who make contributions of the precious boys to this 
infernal traffic. A little while after her last boy was 
buried the saloon took fire at midnight, and from it 
her little cottage caught fire, and she barely escaped 
with her life. She sat upon a little pile of wood in her 
yard at.the midnight hour, with her sad face in her 
wrinkled hands, while the dying embers of her little 
cottage threw their ghosts upon her pitiful form. 
The crowd that gathered were moved by the picture. 
A subscription was started, and soon a man stood by 
her, saying: “Don't cry any more; we have raised 
money enough to replace your house." Lifting her 
face from her hands, she said: “I wa’n't crying about 
the little house; it wa'n't much, noway. I wa'n’t cry- 


230 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


ing about the furniture; there was little of it. But that 
same old saloon burned up John and Willie; and 
nobody got up a paper to save my boys; and if you 
cannot bring back John and bring back Willie, don't 
bother about the little house. My life is ruined any¬ 
way." I am the man, fellow-citizens, to circulate the 
paper to down the saloons and save the boys. 

In the whisky fight in Kentucky I told this story to 
an audience of three or four thousand people, and an 
Irish woman with a sweet old careworn face came 
running up the aisle, stopped just in front of me, 
lifted up both her hands, and while the tears ran down 
her wrinkled face—I wish I could repeat her words 
in her Irish brogue, for the very brogue seemed to 
lend pathos to every sentence—she cried: “Mister 
Stuart, the saloons have got me boy; the saloons have 
got me boy; the saloons have got me dairling boy." 
As I looked into her tearful face and heard her pa¬ 
thetic words I felt that my heart would burst and fall in 
blood at her feet. I said: “Will every woman in the 
audience who can join this broken-hearted woman in 
saying, ‘The saloons have got my boy, or my father, 
or my husband,' hold your hands up." Hundreds of 
hands went up over the whole audience. Some were 
white hands; some were wrinkled; some were clad in 
kid gloves and some in cotton gloves. I pointed to 
the uplifted hands, and said: “Fellow-citizens of Ken¬ 
tucky, I don't know what kind of stuff you are made 
of, but God Almighty made a boy from the mountains 
of Tennessee of the stuff that will walk up by the side 
of these women with their uplifted hands, raise the 
black flag, and fight to the death the infernal curse 
that blights their homes and blights their lives." 


TEMPERANCE 


231 


During one of our great tabernacle meetings 
Brother Jones and I got a telegram from Bowling 
Green, Ky., stating: “We are in the liquor fight. We 
must have the help of Sam Jones or George Stuart.” 
Brother Sam read the telegram and said: “George, 
one of us must go.” I replied: “Hold this meeting 
and I will go; but I will run up to my home and kiss 
my wife and mother and children.” The fires at my 
home and the threats at various times had made my 
home folks a little nervous. My wife and mother fol¬ 
lowed me to the gate and kissed me. Mother said, 
“My boy, be very careful; you are going into a very 
dangerous fight;” and then, remembering how the 
infernal liquor traffic had blighted and saddened her 
home, she said: “ But do your duty for the poor suffer¬ 
ing women of Kentucky, and God will take care of 
you.” I walked off of my home steps with the kiss of 
my mother and wife and little ones still warm on my 
lips, committing my life to the care of Him who gave 
it. Stepping off the train at Bowling Green, a com¬ 
mittee met me. They said: “George, she's as hot as 
a cookstove. If you spit on her, she will fry. We 
thought a committee had better meet you for safety." 
As I walked up the street I heard the comments of 
the enemy. For days and nights I stood on the public 
square of that city and fought for “God and home 
and native land.” When the last speech was made I 
took the train for home, tired and worn with the 
battle. The evening I arrived home I was lying on 
the lounge resting when my doorbell rang. My wife 
announced a telegram, saying: “You need not get up. 
It does not need an answer; it is only good news from 
Bowling Green: 'Bowling Green carried for prohibi- 


232 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


tion. Thank God and Stuart.’” Let every person 
who has a handkerchief get it ready. I will tell you a 
handkerchief story. Lying there on the lounge, I 
took my handkerchief from my pocket, and, waving 
it, while tears of gratitude ran down my cheeks, I 
said: “Wife, the day is coming when the pure white 
banner of temperance will wave its graceful folds over 
the downfall of every saloon in glorious old America.” 
Those of you who will enter the battle of the white 
flag, work for victory, and shout in triumph, let us 
hail the oncoming victory by waving our handker¬ 
chiefs. [Thousands of white handkerchiefs fluttered 
in the air, presenting a marvelous scene, while from 
all over the building the shouts of enthusiasm— 
“Amen!” “Hallelujah!” “Glory to God!”—went up 
from the audience, while Mr. Stuart stood waving his 
handkerchief, stamping his foot, and crying: “Down 
with the infernal saloon! down with the infernal 
saloon!” It was several minutes before the excite¬ 
ment and enthusiasm of the audience quieted down 
so that the speaker could continue.] 

I close my talk of the evening with this little inci¬ 
dent connected with the battle of Bowling Green. I 
passed through that town after the saloons were 
voted out, and my friends gathered around me and 
told me of the results of the victory. One merchant 
said: “A few weeks after the saloons were closed I 
saw a drinking man walk out of my store with shoes, 
domestics, and calico. I touched one of the men in 
the store, and said: ‘There goes George Stuart’s man 
now. Look at him. Instead of liquor he carries home 
to his wife and children the comforts of life.’” The 
milkman came up and said: “George, I wish you 


TEMPERANCE 


233 


could have been with me a few rounds in my wagon 
after the saloons were put out.” I said: “What 
about it?” He replied: “The milk would not hold 
out. I drove up to a drunkard's cottage, and a 
little girl came out to the wagon.” God pity 
the little girls of the drunkards! “I noticed that 
her face was brighter than usual, and she said: 
‘We want a quart of milk this morning.' I replied: 
‘No, you don't. I know what you get. You only 
want a half-pint.' But as they did not pay promptly 
for that, I did not care to increase it. Looking up into 
my face, she said: ‘Yes, sir, we do; we want a quart of 
milk this morning.' I said: ‘No, you don't; I know 
what to give you.' She called her mamma to the 
door, and as her mother stepped to the door with a 
full week's milk tickets in her hands, the little girl 
said: ‘Mamma, don't we want a quart of milk this 
morning?' The mother said: ‘Yes, we will take a 
quart of milk.' As I filled up the cup of the little 
girl until the white milk crowned it, she looked up 
with a smile playing over her sweet little face, and 
said: ‘Mr. Stuart drove the saloons out of Bowling 
Green, and papa has quit drinking, and we are going 
to get a quart of milk every morning now."' 

Brother! brother! My life work is to push the 
bottle from every drunkard's hand, and to crown the 
cup of their helpless children with pure life-giving 
milk. Will you help me? Every one in this great 
audience, men and women, who will join the fight, 
stand on your feet. 

[The large audience jumped to their feet amid the 
greatest enthusiasm, and a voice from the platform 
cried, “Thank God; everybody is up!” Someone 


234 


THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 


started, “ Praise God, from whom all blessings flow," 
and the audience sang it with wild enthusiasm . Fol¬ 
lowing this, Sam Jones made a characteristic talk of 
thirty or forty minutes, and the great audience was 
dismissed.] 















































































































































































































































































































































































































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